Endian mode and hPutBuf & hGetBuf

Adrian Hey ahey@iee.org
Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:39:32 +0000


Hello,

Hope I'm not being to stupid here, but I think there's a portability
problem with these functions for anything other than byte oriented
data because the endian mode in memory is system dependent whereas
for files it will depend on the format specified for the file. 

I would like to suggest additional functions..
	hPutBuf<N><E>
	hGetBuf<N><E>
where N=16,32,64  and E=L(ittle),B(ig)

The endian mode refers to the file format and necessary conversion
to/from the systems "native" mode is done automatically. 

It would be nice to have similar functions for reading and writing
individual Words too.

There would be a similar problem with hPutArray and hGetArray
if they were used for reading writing arrays of words other
than Word8 (using castIOUArray perhaps?)

Just an idea.

Regards
--
Adrian Hey