Portable binary integers [was generic polyvalent I/O]

From: Beman Dawes (beman_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-11-16 11:29:17

At 10:48 PM 11/15/2000 +0100, Jens Maurer wrote:

 >> 3_
 >> binary could be made a bit portable...
 >
 >This would be a portable_binary_writer then.
 >
 >Hm... I dimly remember that we had some portable integers in boost,
 >but I can't find them now.  Beman?

IIRC, Mark Borgerding, Darin Adler, and I all discussed portable binary 
integer classes we use in our own work.  They range from minimalist to much 
more complete, big endian only to both big and little endian.  Some people 
think that portable integer classes should act like full-fledged arithmetic 
objects, others (or at least me) see them as representation holders useful 
for I/O but to be converted to built-in types for any arithmetic 
operations. Beyond data portability, maximum code portability requires such 
classes be POD's and that argues for minimalist rather than maximalist 
designs, IMO. Still other people viewed the need in terms of operations on 
streams, without a need for actual objects.

Although there was no consensus on those kinds of design questions, there 
did seem to be consensus by those who had used them that portable binary 
integer classes are very useful or even essential for lots of practical 
applications.

It would be really nice if someone good at sifting through disparate 
requirements would put together a proposal broad enough to meet multiple 
people's needs but narrow enough not to focus on what is basically a pretty 
simple need.

Moving beyond integers, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1832.txt specifies 
portable formats for other data types.  Personally, I'd be happy with 
integers, at least as a start.

--Beman