Is there a practical limit to the size of bit masks?

// sets the n-th bit in |bytes|. num_bytes is the number of bytes in the array
// result is 0 on success, non-zero on failure (offset out-of-bounds)
int set_bit(char* bytes, unsigned long num_bytes, unsigned long offset)
{
  // make sure offset is valid
  if(offset < 0 || offset > (num_bytes<<3)-1) { return -1; }

  //set the right bit
  bytes[offset >> 3] |= (1 << (offset & 0x7));

  return 0; //success
}

//gets the n-th bit in |bytes|. num_bytes is the number of bytes in the array
// returns (-1) on error, 0 if bit is "off", positive number if "on"
int get_bit(char* bytes, unsigned long num_bytes, unsigned long offset)
{
  // make sure offset is valid
  if(offset < 0 || offset > (num_bytes<<3)-1) { return -1; }

  //get the right bit
  return (bytes[offset >> 3] & (1 << (offset & 0x7));
}