unpacking an array of structs...

I have a desktop app that has a data structure that looks like this: typedef struct MANGOpie { unsigned char mango; unsigned short pie; } MANGOpie; I manage a C array of these things in memory: MANGOpie * pies = (MANGOpie *)malloc(count*sizeof(MANGOpie)); I pass these to a PHP script on my webserver who needs to unpack the array of structs. The unpack() PHP function appears to be what I need, but it doesn't like the formatting I'm using to describe an array of these structs: "(Cmango/npie)*" What it doesn't like are the parentheses. I've tried brackets and curlies too, but nothing works. I have to have the parentheses to tell the parser to repeat the entire struct: mango pie mango pie mango pie ... Formatting without the parentheses -- "Cmango/npie*" -- is: mango pie pie pie pie pie ... One workaround is to drop the struct and just manage two separate parallel arrays of each data type in the desktop app: unsigned char * mangos = (unsigned char *)malloc(count*sizeof(unsigned char)); unsigned short * pies = (unsigned short *)malloc(count*sizeof(unsigned short)); With PHP unpack() format strings: "Cmango*" "npie*" But, I'd rather keep the struct for the sake of code clarity and neatness. Another would be to iterate thru the binary data, unpacking one struct at a time, but that would be slower, presumably. Anyone know the trick to this? Thanks.