title: Converting from 8 bits to 1 byte
body: <p>I have a string of 8 bits and I want to convert it into 1 byte. I am not sure why my function is not working properly. I have 8 bits stored into an array of 8 unsigned chars. This is my method so far:</p>
  
  <pre><code>unsigned int bitsToBytes(unsigned char *bits)
  {
    unsigned int sum = 0;
    for(int i = 7; i &gt;= 0; i--)
    {
      sum += bits[i];
      sum&lt;&lt;=1;
    }
    return sum;
  
  }
  
  int main()
  {
    unsigned char bits[8];
    unsigned int byt;
    byt = bitsToBytes(bits);
    cout &lt;&lt; byt; //doesn't give me the right result
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>EDIT: My array of bits contains '1' and '0' in the array! Sorry for not being clear.</p>
  
  <p>Might anyone know where I went wrong in this? I'm not sure why my bits aren't converting to bytes properly. Could anyone help? Thanks!</p>