So I have this so far: #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <typeinfo> using namespace std; int main () { float f = 3.45; // just an example fp# char* ptr = (char*)&f; // a character pointer to the first byte of the fp#? cout << int(ptr[0]) << endl; // these lines are just to see if I get what I cout << int(ptr[1]) << endl; // am looking for... I want ints that I can cout << int(ptr[2]) << endl; // otherwise manipulate. cout << int(ptr[3]) << endl; } the result is: -51 -52 92 64 so obviously -51 and -52 are not in the byte range that I would expect for a char... I have taken information from similar questions to arrive at this code and from all discussions, a conversion from char to int is straightforward. So why negative values? I am trying to look at a four-byte number, therefore I would expect 4 integers, each in the range 0-255. I am using Codeblocks 13.12 with gcc 4.8.1 with option -std=C++11 on a Windows 8.1 device.