At 3:12 PM -0800 2/16/07, Mel Patrick wrote:
I really liked the idea of the word/long read functions based the processor and I think I will implement those in future.
But the issue is NOT what processor is running, the issue is the endianness of the DATA that needs to be read or written.
Hard coding the endianness to the processor means that files and network streams would not be interoperable across machines that use a different processor.
Personnally I think RB's approach of having the LittleEndian flag on memory blocks and binary streams is exactly the right approach. It handles everything in the simplest manner possible.
Yes you need to think through whether data needs to be interoperable across platforms. If it's an existing file or stream format, then obviously you need to accommodate that regardless of platform. If you're creating a new format that needs to be interoperable across platforms then just use LittleEndian since that's what all modern Macs and Windows machines use.
Regards, Joe Huber _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
