Working with bits

Hi All, Most of the configuration for the Cochran is stored in bits and I'm wondering how experience programmers would handle this. Here's a sense of the data: short int a5 consists of byte 0 : alarm clock minute byte 1, bit 7: alarm clock on byte 1, bits 6-0: alarm clock hour There are also 3 and 4 bit integers stored in bytes. Finally there are decimals stored as byte 0: decimal fraction * 256 byte 1: integer portion I can create a function that extracts the bits into handy to use values and another to insert the bits back in. I can also use a struct with bit positions. What would you suggest is the best and portable way to handle this? Thanks -- John Van Ostrand At large on sabbatical