Re: [boost] The file boost/detail/endian.hpp needs to be set up for your CPU type

Subject: Re: [boost] The file boost/detail/endian.hpp needs to be set up for your CPU type
From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-05-08 02:55:41

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Adrian_H <adrianh.bsc_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Even if templates or optimizers are not capable of stating this.  The
> COMPILERS should have something EMBEDDED to state this.  It is, after all,
> generating the code.  And there are constants that are lying about in
> memory
> too that it has to create.  So logically, it knows what endianness of the
> target binary is going to be, even if it doesn't know what it is outside
> the
> data segment that the constants are stored in.  I only know a little about
> multi-endian architectures, but IIRC, they have a way to automagicaly
> transfer data from different endian segments correctly.
>
> Still, with cloud computing and other interoperable computing models,
> COMPILERS need to take responsibility to make it possible for programmers
> to
> make sane code without such clumsy methods as an endian.h header file.
>

When you care for endianness, you either program for a specific target
(e.g. some low level code to speed up processing) or you're implementing
some sort of binary (de)serialization. The first case is best covered with
preprocessor macros, since target-specific code typically should not be
compiled for other targets. The second case is what the C++ Standard is
severely lacking, IMHO, but a third party library solution based on
(non-portable) macros is still possible.