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.