std::bitset woes

[grahamr (work)]

Apparently you can't construct a bitset without a constant value in the constructor and I was wondering if there was a way around that:

Example:

		std::cout << std::bitset<50>(123456789) << std::endl;  // legal
		size_t bits = 50;
		std::cout << std::bitset<bits>(123456789) << std::endl; // illegal

Not being able to create a bitset with a variable makes it near useless.

My actual problem is taking place in a loop and I wish to output the bits for huffman code for each one - and since huffman codes are of variable length I need variable length bitsets. I thought bitset's would be ideal for this situation.

Thanks, G.