Sure, that works when trying to conserve memory to the degree that a few bytes matter, but the downside is that it's more complex, less obvious. I've done exac

Sure, that works when trying to conserve memory to the degree that a few bytes matter, but the downside is that it's more complex, less obvious. I've done exactly what you propose on different projects but I would never call it the "best" method, merely one that conserves memory but with typical trade-offs like all solutions.