Note: this definition was taken straight from Wikipedia] Endianness generally refers to sequencing methods used in a one-dimensional system (such as writing or computer memory). The two main types of endianness are known as big-endian and little-endian. Systems which exhibit aspects of both conventions are often described as middle-endian. When specifically talking about bytes in computing, endianness is also referred to as byte order.
processor will be either "big endian" or "little endian" based upon the manner in which it encodes multiple byte values. There is no difference in performance between the two encoding methods, but it is one of the sources of difficulty when reading binary data on different platforms.
Ordering of bits and bytes in a data word. Big endian and little endian are common data formats.
Big vs. Little Endian. Big Endia is the order of bytes in a word in which the most significant byte or digits are placed leftmost in the structure. Little endian places the least significant digits on the left. A bi-endian machine, such as the PowerPC, is built to handle both types of byte ordering.
A term describing different ways of ordering bytes in storage to represent values. See big-endian, byte order, and little-endian. This term has been used since 1980 to describe the different ways various computer architectures store values in memory. The term comes from the book Gulliver's Travels, in which the Lilliputians fought over a law that required all soft-boiled eggs to be cracked at the little end.
The definition of whether numbers are stored with the most significant byte or least significant byte first. Motorola machines and Internet protocols stored numbers most significant byte first, a.k.a. big-endian. Intel machines and VAXen are essentially unique in storing numbers least significant byte first, a.k.a. little-endian.
Computers store data in binary, a series of bits made up of 0s and 1s. The computer stores 8 of these bits in a structure called a byte. A big endian system stores the most significant value in the lowest numerical byte address and a little endian system does exactly the opposite, storing the least significant address in the lowest address . Operating Systems like Windows NT are little endian , other OSes like HP-UX are big endian. It does not matter to the Itaniumâ„¢ processor family architecture which way, because it is endian-agnostic and can work with both forms.
In the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), an attribute of data representation that reflects how certain multi-octet data is stored in memory. See big endian and little endian.
Byte order for integer values, system specific See Big Endian, Little Endian
