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From: Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Portable 16 bit binary integer write
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:13:39 -0700
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supercat@casperkitty.com writes:
> On Saturday, September 24, 2016 at 4:12:58 PM UTC-5, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> Exactly how many new functions would be needed?  Presumably 4 functions
>> for each supported size greater than 1 byte -- but how many such sizes
>> are there, and what are they?
>
> Signed (two's-complement) or unsigned, big-endian or little-endian, 8, 16,
> 32, or 64 bits.  If one assumes that data will be packed into octets rather
> than into larger chunks, accommodating all possibilities would require
> 16 "get" functions and 16 "put" functions.

Why would you need special functions for 8-bit data?

Are we assuming file data is organized into octets?  Nothing in
the standard currently makes that assumption.

Perhaps POSIX would be a better place for this.  Of course POSIX
already has byte order conversion functions (htonl, htons, ntohl,
ntohs).  It currently only supports 16 and 32 bits; perhaps adding
64-bit versions would be useful.

[...]

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"