I don't seem to find any information managing the IO pins as full or half byte ports? This is easily done one other ATmel compilers, PORTC= byte; I'm sure it can be done here too?
What I need to do is read in a full parallel byte using the lower four bits of PC,0-3 and the upper four bits of PD, 4-7. I know how to combine them into a single byte.
Note that other PC and PD pins are also in use such as the UART RX/TX pins.