How to convert a sequence of 32 char (0/1) to 32 bits (uint32_t)?

Question

I have an array of char (usually thousands of bytes long) read from a file, all composed of 0 and 1 (not \'0\' and \'1\', in which case I could use strtoul). I want

Answer 1

Bit shifting is the simplest way to go about this. Better to write code that reflects what you're actually doing rather than trying to micro-optimize.

So you want something like this:

char bits[32];
// populate bits
uint32_t value = 0;
for (int i=0; i<32; i++) {
    value |= (uint32_t)(bits[i] & 1) << i;
}