When you store a boolean value in a bool type, each boolean value uses 1 byte, or 8 bits–the size of a boolinstance.
You can be more efficient in storing boolean values by using each bit within a chunk of memory to represent a single boolean value. You can do this quite easily by using an enum type to store a series of flags. In the example below, a single value of type Talents can represent unique values for up to 8 different boolean values.
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| [Flags]public enum Talents{ Singing = 1, Dancing = 2, Juggling = 4, JokeTelling = 8, DoingMagic = 16, RollingTongue = 32, StiltWalking = 64, DoingSplits = 128}; |
You can set various bits using the bitwise OR operator.
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| Talents myTalents = Talents.JokeTelling | Talents.Juggling | Talents.StiltWalking;// 76 = 8 + 4 + 64int asInt = (int)myTalents; |
Note that you can store a maximum of 32 different flags in an enumerated type, because an enum type uses 4 bytes (32 bits) of storage.