Converting unsigned chars to signed integer

Question

I have an unsigned char array with 2 elements that represents a signed integer. How can I convert these 2 bytes into a signed integer?

Edit: The unsigne

Answer 1

It depend of endianness. Something for big endian :

unsigned char x[2];
short y = (x[0] << 8) | x[1]

Something for little endian :

unsigned char x[2];
short y = (x[1] << 8) | x[0]