Re: [boost] [endian] endian flip and endian domain

Subject: Re: [boost] [endian] endian flip and endian domain
From: Schrader, Glenn - 1002 - MITLL (gschrad_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-06-08 12:05:59

> Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 7:15 AM
> To: boost_at_[hidden]
> Subject: Re: [boost] [endian] endian flip and endian domain
> 
> At Tue, 8 Jun 2010 07:05:36 -0400,
> Stewart, Robert wrote:
> > 
> > "Flip" is not appropriate to my mind.  It works well for 
> bits because 
> > they are binary, but it doesn't convey the idea of reordering 
> > bits/bytes to a specific sequence.  I prefer my suggestion of 
> > "reorder" because, after all, the operation
> > (ostensibly) reorders the data.
> 
> +1
> 
> You might also consider "invert," as in "invert the 
> endianness," which does what "flip" tries to do with IMO a 
> more appropriate word.
> 
> --
> Dave Abrahams
> BoostPro Computing
> http://www.boostpro.com

Another name for this kind of operation that has some previous 
history behind it is "permute". The PPC instruction set has a 
permute vector instruction that takes an altivec vector register 
(16 bytes) and re-arranges it at the byte level using the contents 
of another register as a  list of source byte indices. Since some 
systems have used strange byte orderings "permute" would be a more 
general name than even "flip".

Glenn Schrader - MITLL