how to save 2 shorts and a bunch of unsigneds in a char* array?

[Bats]

I'm writing an XSUB to glue an existing C module to my perl code, but I'm kind of new to C.
I want to save 2 shorts and n unsigneds in a char * array (so I can return the array to the perl module and store it in a mysql table right away). I have looked into memcpy, but it doesn't seem to do what I want. This is what I am trying right now:

short some_func() { ... }
unsigned some_other_func() { ... }
int n = 128;

char * return_func() {
  char * result = malloc( sizeof( short ) * 2 + sizeof( unsigned ) * n );
  int pos = 0;
  short s = some_func();
  memcpy( &result[pos], &s, sizeof(short) );
  pos += sizeof(short);
  s = some_func();
  memcpy( &result[pos], &s, sizeof(short) );
  pos += sizeof(short);

  int i;
  for( i=0; i<n; i++ ) {
    unsigned u = some_other_func();
    memcpy( &result[pos], &u, sizeof( unsigned ) );
    pos += sizeof( unsigned );
  }

  return result;
}

Is there a better way to do this, without memcpy?
Or should i call memcpy in a different way?
Google couldn't help me out.

Thanks in advance.

[JosAH]

I'm writing an XSUB to glue an existing C module to my perl code, but I'm kind of new to C.
I want to save 2 shorts and n unsigneds in a char * array (so I can return the array to the perl module and store it in a mysql table right away). I have looked into memcpy, but it doesn't seem to do what I want. This is what I am trying right now

What doesn't it do what you want? Or what does it do that you don't want? Your program fragment seems ok to me.

kind regards,

Jos

[Bats]

if I add this before the return:

  int len = strlen(result);
  printf( "len: %d\n", len );

I see

len: 2

[newb16]

What does XSUB expect in this string to interpret is an array of numbers?

[JosAH]

if I add this before the return:

  int len = strlen(result);
  printf( "len: %d\n", len );

I see

len: 2

The result is not a string because you have copied two shorts to the start of the buffer; if one byte of those shorts contains a nul byte it will be considered the end of the 'string'.

kind regards,

Jos