I recently posted this example code to ni.com - https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-40315 
  
 
  
Essentially I tried to create a completely universal (or close thereto) Cluster to Struct and Back Again set of functions. These consider packing/padding, data alignment, endian-ness, etc. I included some examples that have arrays and strings in the cluster as well as data pointers. 
  
I see this topic being fairly active here on LAVA and to a slightly lesser degree at NI.com 
  
Anyway, I don't know if the code will help anyone but I would be helped by any feedback or suggestions if anyone does try it! 
  
Cheers, 
-Jolt