Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!tvcent!comspec!scocan!john
From: john@sco.COM (John R. MacMillan)
Subject: Re: 64 bit architectures and C/C++
Organization: SCO Canada, Inc.
Date: Mon, 06 May 1991 21:43:23 GMT
Message-ID: <1991May06.214323.14831@sco.COM>
References: <13229@goofy.Apple.COM> <1991May01.222112.13130@sco.COM> <16037@smoke.brl.mil>
Sender: news@sco.COM (News administration)

|>|It is necessary to have 8, 16, and 32-bit data types, in order to be able
|>|to read data from files.
|>It's not necessary, but it does make it easier.
|
|Not even that.  Assuming that for some unknown reason you're faced with
|reading a binary file that originated on some other system, there is a
|fair chance that it used a "big endian" architecture while your system
|is "little endian" or vice-versa.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that this would help something be
universally portable; rather that if you're _lucky_ and the endianess
is the same, having the right size data types available might make
that single port easier.

|Binary data transportability is a much thornier issue than most people
|realize.

Yes, I've seen many ``portable'' binary formats that simply weren't.