Why does the BitConverter return Bytes and how can I get the bits then?

Question

As input I get an int (well, actually a string I should convert to an int).
This int should be converted to bits.
For each bit position that has a 1, I should get the position.
In my database, I want all records that have an int value field that has this position as value.
I currently have the following naive code that should ask my entity(holding the databaseValue) if it matches the position, but obviously doesn't work correctly:

Byte[] bits = BitConverter.GetBytes(theDatabaseValue);
return bits[position].equals(1);

Firstly, I have an array of byte because there apparantly is no bit type. Should I use Boolean[] ? Then, how can I fill this array? Lastly, if previous statements are solved, I should just return bits[position]

I feel like this should somehow be solved with bitmasks, but I don't know where to start..

Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

I suspect BitArray is what you're after. Alternatively, using bitmasks yourself isn't hard:

for (int i=0; i < 32; i++)
{
    if ((value & (1 << i)) != 0)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Bit {0} was set!", i);
    }
}

Answer 2

Do not use Boolean. Although boolean has only two values, it is actually stored using 32 bits like an int.

EDIT: Actually, in array form Booleans will be packed into bytes, not 4 bytes.