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obitools3/src/obilittlebigman.h
2015-09-30 12:03:46 +02:00

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1.9 KiB
C

/****************************************************************************
* Header file for endianness checking *
****************************************************************************/
/**
* @file obilittlebigman.h
* @author Eric Coissac (eric.coissac@metabarcoding.org)
* @date 23 May 2015
* @brief Header file for endianness checking.
*/
#ifndef OBILITTLEBIGMAN_H_
#define OBILITTLEBIGMAN_H_
#include <stdbool.h>
/**
* Test if the architecture of the processor is little endian.
*
* ##Two classes of CPU architecture can be defined:
* - little endian
* - big endian
*
* They describe the way the processor stores multi-byte values
* in memory. If we consider a 32 bits integer value encoded in
* hexadecimal `0x11223344`, this value needs four bytes to be
* stored. These four bytes will have consecutive addresses in memory.
* Let's say that these addresses will be : 01, 02, 03, and 04
*
* ###A big endian architecture will store our integer with the following schema:
*
* Address | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04
* ---------|------|------|------|------
* value | Ox11 | Ox22 | 0x33 | 0x44
*
* In this architecture, the last address (the end of the representation) is
* used to store the byte of higher weight (BIG ENDian)
*
* ###A little endian architecture will store our integer with the following schema:
*
* Address | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04
* ---------|------|------|------|------
* value | Ox44 | Ox33 | 0x22 | 0x11
*
* In this architecture, the last address is
* used to store the byte of lighter weight (LITTLE ENDian)
*
* @returns a `bool` value:
* - `true` if the architecture is little endian
* - `false` if the architecture is big endian
*
* @since May 2015
* @author Eric Coissac (eric.coissac@metabarcoding.org)
*/
bool obi_is_little_endian();
#endif /* OBILITTLEBIGMAN_H_ */