How can I read BMP pixel values into an array?

Question

I'm writing code in C++ (on Windows) and I'm trying to extract the pixel values of a grayscale bmp. I don't care about keeping any of the metadata, and just want to store the pixel values in a char array. I haven't been able to find a standard or "typical" way of doing this manually, so I'm wondering if there's perhaps a simple library that people use to load bitmaps into memory.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

and ready to go code, tested with g++ (not Windows, but may help someone):

#pragma pack(1)

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <vector>

using namespace std;

#include "bmp.h"

vector<char> buffer;
PBITMAPFILEHEADER file_header;
PBITMAPINFOHEADER info_header;

void fill() {
    std::ifstream file("data.bmp");

    if (file) {
        file.seekg(0,std::ios::end);
        streampos length = file.tellg();
        file.seekg(0,std::ios::beg);

        buffer.resize(length);
        file.read(&buffer[0],length);

        file_header = (PBITMAPFILEHEADER)(&buffer[0]);
        info_header = (PBITMAPINFOHEADER)(&buffer[0] + sizeof(BITMAPFILEHEADER));
    }
}

int main() {
    fill();

    cout << buffer[0] << buffer[1] << endl;
    cout << file_header->bfSize << endl;
    cout << info_header->biWidth << " " << info_header->biHeight << endl;

    return 0;
}

In bmp.h i have defined structures:

#pragma once

typedef int LONG;
typedef unsigned short WORD;
typedef unsigned int DWORD;

typedef struct tagBITMAPFILEHEADER {
  WORD  bfType;
  DWORD bfSize;
  WORD  bfReserved1;
  WORD  bfReserved2;
  DWORD bfOffBits;
} BITMAPFILEHEADER, *PBITMAPFILEHEADER;

typedef struct tagBITMAPINFOHEADER {
  DWORD biSize;
  LONG  biWidth;
  LONG  biHeight;
  WORD  biPlanes;
  WORD  biBitCount;
  DWORD biCompression;
  DWORD biSizeImage;
  LONG  biXPelsPerMeter;
  LONG  biYPelsPerMeter;
  DWORD biClrUsed;
  DWORD biClrImportant;
} BITMAPINFOHEADER, *PBITMAPINFOHEADER;