Convert a string of binary into an ASCII string (C++)

Question

I have a string variable containing 32 bits of binary. What would be the best way to convert these 4 characters (8 bits is one character) represented by the binary back into the

Answer 1

An alternative if you're using C++11:

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

int main()
{
    std::string data = "01110100011001010111001101110100";
    std::stringstream sstream(data);
    std::string output;
    while(sstream.good())
    {
        std::bitset<8> bits;
        sstream >> bits;
        char c = char(bits.to_ulong());
        output += c;
    }

    std::cout << output;

   return 0;
}

Note that bitset is part of C++11.

Also note that if data is not well formed, the result will be silently truncated when sstream.good() returns false.