Problem - Kevin Tafuro

Solution
Merging multiple scalar values into a single, larger scalar value can make simple,
unrelated values appear to be a large value or bit field. Two 8-bit values can be
merged into a single 16-bit value, and two 16-bit values can be merged into a single
32-bit value.
Discussion
Merging scalar variables is a light obfuscation. When used in a loop, a debugger can
set a watch on the counter variable and make obvious the fact that the upper or
lower half of the variable is being incremented with each iteration of the loop.
The following macros merge two char values into a single short value, and two short
values into a single int value. This is accomplished by shifting the shorter values into
the larger value that contains them, and by masking half of the larger value and shifting
as appropriate to retrieve the shorter value.
/* x and y are chars, returns a short */
/* x is in position 0, y is in position 1 */
#define MERGE_CHAR(x, y) (((y) > (8 * (c))) & 0x00FF)
/* s is a short, c is a position, and val is a char value */
#define SET_CHAR(s, c, val) (((s) & (0xFF00 >> (8 * (c)))) | ((val) (16 * (s))) & 0x0FFFF)
/* i is an int, s is position, and val is a short value */
#define SET_SHORT(i, s, val) (((i) & (0xFFFF0000 >> (16 * (s)))) | \
((val)