From -3562947501313318533 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f78e5,738ae3371beb3408 X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public From: Steve Clamage Subject: Re: portable method of determining endianness byte order. Date: 1999/12/01 Message-ID: <38455F22.F7244F42@sun.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 555406361 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: taumet.eng.sun.com Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Approved: stephen.clamage@sun.com (comp.std.c++) References: <38329967.470B6CED@hqs.mid.gmeds.com> <38359FF5.AB0B77E9@zetec.com> X-Accept-Language: en X-UID: 0000000001 X-Status: $$$T Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Sun Microsystems Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Originator: clamage@taumet Hyman Rosen wrote: > > Francis Glassborow writes: > > Because no such method exists. And why do you assume that it is a > > simple two way choice? > > If I recall correctly, the VAX had a mixed model for its 32-bit > integers. I think the order for 0x12345678 was 34 12 78 56. > No, integers on the VAX were strictly little-endian, but floating-point numbers were neither big- nor little-endian. The most significant byte was in the middle of the storage area in memory. When you tranferred a floating-point value between memory and a register, the bytes were arranged into the appropriate order. I did work on an ideosyncratic 16-bit system where 16-bit values were little-endian and 32-bit values were stored in the order you show above. -- Steve Clamage, stephen.clamage@sun.com [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles, try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ --- Please see the FAQ before posting. --- ] [ FAQ: http://reality.sgi.com/austern_mti/std-c++/faq.html ]