Is there a way to print the bit representation of an object?

Question

I'm using something like the following. Is there a better way?

for (int i = 0; i < sizeof(Person) ; i++) {
    const char &cr = *((char*)personPtr + i);
    cout << bitset<CHAR_BIT>(cr);
}

Answer 1

I would suggest to provide a serialize_as_binary utility in your Person class.

template<typename T>
void serialize_as_bin(const T &t, ostream& os) {
  const unsigned char *p = reinterpret_cast<const unsigned char *>(&t);
  for(size_t s = 0; s < sizeof t; ++s, ++p) serialize_as_bin(*p, os);
}

template<>
void serialize_as_bin(const unsigned char &t, ostream& os) {
  // Code to serialize one byte
  std::bitset<CHAR_BIT> x(t);
  os << x;
}

struct Person {
  A a;
  B b;

  ostream& serialize_as_binary(ostream& os) {
    serialize_as_bin(a, os);
    serialize_as_bin(b, os);
    return os;
  }
  void deserialize_from_binary() {
    // Similar stuff if required
    ...
  }
};

Live example here