xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man3head/endian.h.3head (revision 9b9d39d2a32ff806d2431dbcc50968ef1e6d46b2)
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12.\" Copyright 2016 Joyent, Inc.
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14.Dd August 2, 2018
15.Dt ENDIAN.H 3HEAD
16.Os
17.Sh NAME
18.Nm endian.h
19.Nd definitions for endian routines
20.Sh SYNOPSIS
21.In endian.h
22.Sh DESCRIPTION
23The
24.In endian.h
25header defines functions and macros focused on converting data between
26the host machines native byte order and big or little-endian values.
27While the manual page details the macros defined by
28.In endian.h ,
29the functions are documented separately in
30.Xr endian 3C .
31More information on endianness and a general background on the topic can
32be found in
33.Xr byteorder 7 .
34.Pp
35The
36.In endian.h
37header defines the following macros:
38.Bl -tag -width Ds
39.It Sy LITTLE_ENDIAN
40A constant used to indicate a little-endian integer.
41It is always defined, regardless of the actual endianess of the underlying
42platform.
43This macro should be used to compare against the
44.Sy BYTE_ORDER
45macro.
46.It Sy BIG_ENDIAN
47A constant used to indicate a big-endian integer.
48It is always defined, regardless of the actual endianess of the underlying
49platform.
50This macro should be used to compare against the
51.Sy BYTE_ORDER
52macro.
53.It Sy PDP_ENDIAN
54A constant used to indicate the endianness used for four byte values on
55the PDP-11.
56It is always defined, regardless of the actual endianess of the underlying
57platform.
58This macro should be used to compare against the
59.Sy BYTE_ORDER
60macro.
61.It Sy BYTE_ORDER
62The value of the
63.Sy BYTE_ORDER
64macro will be one of
65.Sy LITTLE_ENDIAN
66or
67.Sy BIG_ENDIAN .
68At this time, no supported architectures use the byte order indicated by
69the
70.Sy PDP_ENDIAN
71macro.
72.Pp
73To determine the byte order of a system, one may compare the
74.Sy BYTE_ORDER
75to one of the aforementioned macros.
76.El
77.Pp
78In addition to the routines provided by this header, standardized
79functions may be found in
80.Xr byteorder 3C .
81The header
82.Xr types.h 3HEAD
83also defines additional pre-processor symbols to determine the current
84endianness of the system.
85.Sh INTERFACE STABILITY
86.Sy Committed
87.Sh SEE ALSO
88.Xr byteorder 3C ,
89.Xr endian 3C ,
90.Xr types.h 3HEAD ,
91.Xr attributes 7 ,
92.Xr byteorder 7
93