FreeTDS Development Group

["Darryl Friesen" <Darryl.Friesen AT usask.ca>]

> sorry if it's kinda stupid question, I subscribe to this mailing list
> since 1 years ago, and I always hear about Bigendian problem, what is
> Bigendian anyways ??
> any 'clear' explanation would be very grateful

It refers to the order in which the computer stores the most significant
byte of a multibyte data type (if you're a programmer think of word, longint
etc).  The most significant byte is either at the big end or the little end.
Intel machines are little-endian, Suns and PPC machines are big-endian.

I beleive the actual name comes from Johnathon Swift's book "Gulliver's
Travels".


- Darryl

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  Darryl Friesen, B.Sc., Programmer/Analyst    Darryl.Friesen AT usask.ca
  Education & Research Technology Services,     http://gollum.usask.ca/
  Department of Computing Services,
  University of Saskatchewan
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  "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes"