Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!tank!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: "big endian" and "little endian" - first usage for computer
Message-ID: <15209@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 30 Dec 88 19:21:38 GMT
References: <2766@cbnews.ATT.COM> <10147@well.UUCP> <13045@cup.portal.com>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 18

In article <13045@cup.portal.com> bcase@cup.portal.com (Brian Case) writes:
>Big endian has the significant advantage that, when properly aligned,
>character strings can be compared using the full width of the machine's
>ALU.  For 32-bit machines, this means that two four-character (sub)strings
>can be compared at one time.  This is because the lowest address always
>points to the *first* character in the string.  Little endian requires
>character-at-a-time processing or hardware gymnastics.

This holds up for ordering comparisons (< <= > >=) only when the
strings being compared are known to be sufficiently long, or are padded
with 0s (or something that compares < `normal' charactrers) to the
machine's word length.  For equality comparisons, the order of
subcomponents is irrelevant.

I think this particular difference makes little difference....
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris