A class template, perhaps named "endian_buffer", that is the same as the current class endian except it does not provide the operators. The typedefs provided would have "buf" added to the name (E.G. big32buf_t, etc.)
Beman, I would be in full support of this approach. In fact, it's along the lines of what I was thinking when I suggested this signature for the "swap" function: template<typename T_> swapped_data<T_> native_to_big(T_) Clearly, your endian_buffer<> is very closely related to the above. However, in my original email I didn't pursue the concept because I felt I already made too many suggestions. But since we're throwing out ideas, here are a few, off the cuff. I am not married to this interface, but I think it points out the different things you may want to do with an endian_buffer: template<typename T_, bool Aligned_, std::size_t Size_ = sizeof(T_)> class endian_buffer; endian_buffer<void, ...> e1; uint32_t x1 = big_to_native<uint32_t>(e1); endian_buffer<uint32_t, ...> e2; uint32_t x2 = big_to_native(e2); endian_buffer<uint32_t, true> e3; uint32_t & x3 = reorder_big_to_native(e3); Cheers, Tom