Re: [boost] Any interest in bitstream class?

Subject: Re: [boost] Any interest in bitstream class?
From: Paul Long (plong_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-06-28 14:03:40

On 6/28/2013 9:33 AM, Klaim - Joël Lamotte wrote:
> I would be interested in such a stream type.
> However, only if there is an optional way to force the endianess (via
> implicit conversion)

There are two endianesses (?) at play here--in the bit stream and on the 
platform. To which are you referring? If the latter, there isn't 
anything to worry about because ibitstream makes no assumptions about 
the endianess of the platform, but it does assume network order, or big 
endian, in the bit stream. If you are concerned about the bit-stream 
endianess, we'd need to work out the specifics, because I don't think 
the semantics would be obvious for other endians. For example, can the 
bit endianess be specified separate from the byte endianess? (Hmm... 
that's reminds me--it currently supports STL bitsets but I don't think 
it supports C bitfields. I'll have to look into that.) Also, what 
bit-stream endianesses should bitstream support--big, little, mixed, middle?

> or any other feature allowing easy serialization on
> multiple platforms.

Like I said, it should already behave the same on all platforms, but 
maybe I'm missing something. What is your specific concern?

Paul