User level Macros for Endianess

[David A. Gatwood]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2000 iweiny at pacbell.net wrote:

> Unfortunately I don't have an x86 Linux machine and he has been reluctant to
> change his code because he feels this is not the "proper" way to detect
> endianess across Linux's, Solaris, and possibly other UNIX's.

Well, if you really want it to be completely cross-platform, you could do
something like:


int a = 0x33323130;
char *b, d[5];
int c;

for (b=(char *)&a, c=0; c<4; c++,b++)
    {
	d[c]=*b;
    }
d[5]=0;



I believe that the Linux macros do this same basic thing, if memory
serves....  BTW, if you printf("%s", d) you'll get 3210 on big endian,
0123 on little.  You could also do it as short integers instead of
characters by subtracting 48 in the d[c]=*b line.

Just a sick thought.  :-)


Later,
David


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