"Yuval Ronen" <ronen_yuval@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:e5l56m$vse$1@sea.gmane.org...
Beman Dawes wrote:
Back in 1999 and 2000, there was discussion of a Boost Endian library to provided portable big and little endian integer types. I've dusted off some old code from Darin Adler, gotten his permission to use the new Boost license, and have put together a library.
A zip file of the whole library is available at http://mysite.verizon.net/~beman/endian.zip
I think an Endian library would be most useful in Boost. However, I have some doubts about this proposal. It seems to me that it tries to solve two problems at once, and it doesn't look good. The first issue is providing integer types of various sizes/alignments. the second issue is Endianness. Wouldn't it be better to separate those two?
If we want to provide with integer types of various sizes/alignments, then why shouldn't they allowed to be with native Endianness? And the complimentary question - if we want to provide with specific Endianness types, then why can't we do it with regular types such as int or long?
See Chis Kohlhoff's posting, and my response to him.
What I'm suggesting is to provide a library for integer types of various sizes/alignments. This already partly exists in Boost.Integer (AFAIK, support for alignment is missing there). So Boost.Integer needs to be expanded for this.
Again, see Chis' post and my response. That is pretty much what he was suggesting IIUC.
Then, there's also a need for Endian classes which are templated with some integer type. Something like:
boost::big_endian<int> x; boost::little_endian<boost::uint32_t> y; boost::big_endian<boost::signed_7_bytes_aligned> z;
This way, the full scope of possibilities is provided.
The docs can be read at http://mysite.verizon.net/~beman/endian.html
Just a tiny thing: a sentence describing how to convert to/from native integers would be very helpful. I know I could find it in the code, if I'd bother to look, and the code sample also implies there's an implicit conversion from native types, but what about the other way, and anyway, I think a short explaining sentence is a good idea.
I've expanded the docs. Will post later today. Yes, there are conversions to and from the cover type. Thanks, --Beman