storing structs with bit-fields on disk minimally

[theperplepigg]

Here's my problem :

i have a structure, defined as follows:

#define MAPSIZE 14
struct node
{
	unsigned short leftMap		:MAPSIZE;		// map to left input
	unsigned short rightMap		:MAPSIZE;		// map to right input
	unsigned short leftValue	:1;			// left value  = 0 || 1
	unsigned short rightValue	:1;			// right value = 0 || 1
	unsigned short out		:1;			// output of node
};

(yes, i know i still have 1 bit to play with, just don't need it)

and an array of these nodes. i want to be able to store this array on disk in just as little space as i do in memory(32 bits*numNodes). is there any slick way to write/read it, such as

nodes[i] >> out; // to write
out >> nodes[i]; // to read

or do i have to go about writing read/write functions that will pack an unsigned short and write that to disk? thanks.

--paul