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Author kmag
Recipients georg.brandl, kmag
Date 2009-07-04.07:46:26
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Message-id <1246693590.67.0.013392500744.issue6414@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
In-reply-to
Content
In http://docs.python.org/dev/library/struct.html,

it says
"Native byte order is big-endian or little-endian, depending on the host 
system. For example, Motorola and Sun processors are big-endian; Intel 
and DEC processors are little-endian."

This is a gross over-generalization at best.  Off the top of my head, 
current Linux kernels run the Intel Itanium in big-endian mode. (Though, 
I don't recall if there's a non-privileged instruction to flip 
endianness, system headers and system calls are defined in big-endian 
order, which is what's most relevant to the struct module.)  Sun SPARC 
v9 is bi-endian. Intel Itanium and XScale processors are bi-endian.  Dec 
Alphas are bi-endian.  (Though, I'm only aware of Cray using Alphas in 
big-endian mode.)

The quoted paragraph should name specific processors which are single-
endian (Intel Core 2, Sun SPARC v8) and/or provide a Wikipedia 
reference, rather than making incorrect statements.

Intel Itanium machines running Linux are probably the most common 
systems where this statement's inaccuracy is likely to cause confusion 
among developers.
History
Date User Action Args
2009-07-04 07:46:31kmagsetrecipients: + kmag, georg.brandl
2009-07-04 07:46:30kmagsetmessageid: <1246693590.67.0.013392500744.issue6414@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
2009-07-04 07:46:28kmaglinkissue6414 messages
2009-07-04 07:46:27kmagcreate