Array of Int and *Char - C++

Question

I want to use LZO to compress a array of int or byte. So I need to copy the int array to a *char then I will compress and save to file. And after i need do reverse operation. I will open the file read it with *Char and the decompress to array of int.

I don't want to do a look in the *char to convert each int. Is the any way to do this quickily?

char *entrada;
int *arrayInt2;
int arrayInt1[100];
int ctr;

for(ctr=0;ctr<=100; ctr++)
{
    arrayInt1[ctr] = ctr;
} 

entrada = reinterpret_cast<char *>(arrayInt1);
arrayInt2 = reinterpret_cast<int *>(entrada);

return 0;

I want something like this. Is this correct? Thanks

Answer 1

You can treat the integer array directly as a (binary) character buffer and pass it to your compression function:

char *buffer = reinterpret_cast<char *>(my_int_array);

And similarly when you decompress into a character buffer, you can use it as an integer array:

int *array = reinterpret_cast<int *>(my_char_buffer);

Make sure that you keep track of the original length of the integer array and that you don't access invalid indices.