C/C++ - Convert 24-bit signed integer to float

Question

I\'m programming in C++. I need to convert a 24-bit signed integer (stored in a 3-byte array) to float (normalizing to [-1.0,1.0]).

The platform is MSVC++ on x86 (wh

Answer 1

Since you are using a char array, it does not necessarily follow that the input is little endian by virtue of being x86; the char array makes the byte order architecture independent.

Your code is somewhat over complicated. A simple solution is to shift the 24 bit data to scale it to a 32bit value (so that the machine's natural signed arithmetic will work), and then use a simple ratio of the result with the maximum possible value (which is INT_MAX less 256 because of the vacant lower 8 bits).

#include 

float convert(const unsigned char* src)
{
    int i = src[2] << 24 | src[1] << 16 | src[0] << 8 ;
    return i / (float)(INT_MAX - 256) ;
}

Test code:

unsigned char* makeS24( unsigned int i, unsigned char* s24 )
{
    s24[2] = (unsigned char)(i >> 16) ;
    s24[1] = (unsigned char)((i >> 8) & 0xff);
    s24[0] = (unsigned char)(i & 0xff);
    return s24 ;
}

#include 

int main()
{
    unsigned char s24[3] ;
    volatile int x = INT_MIN / 2 ;

    std::cout << convert( makeS24( 0x800000, s24 )) << std::endl ;  // -1.0
    std::cout << convert( makeS24( 0x7fffff, s24 )) << std::endl ;  //  1.0
    std::cout << convert( makeS24( 0, s24 )) << std::endl ;         //  0.0
    std::cout << convert( makeS24( 0xc00000, s24 )) << std::endl ;  // -0.5
    std::cout << convert( makeS24( 0x400000, s24 )) << std::endl ;  //  0.5

}