Big endian

Is there a way to tell if your system is big endian or little endian with out running a program cuz I dont have gcc install? either sudo so i cant sudo install it.

Well I can tell you that if you are using an Intel x86 based system, it is little endian. If you have a PowerPC, (old Apple machines) it is big endian (Apparently that architecture can do both).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kiros88

Is there a way to tell if your system is big endian or little endian with out running a program cuz I dont have gcc install? either sudo so i cant sudo install it.

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Simple. Just analyze the first byte of a multi-byte value, eg:

Code:

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int is_little_endian_machine( void )
{
    static unsigned long value = 1;
    static int result = *( unsigned char* )&value == 1;
    return result;
}

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sebastiani

Simple. Just analyze the first byte of a multi-byte value, eg:

Code:

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int is_little_endian_machine( void )
{
    static unsigned long value = 1;
    static int result = *( unsigned char* )&value == 1;
    return result;
}

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Yes, but is the OP not stating that he/she has no access to a compiler?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kermit

Yes, but is the OP not stating that he/she has no access to a compiler?

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Doh! Yeah, I misread that (read: wasn't paying attention)...

Google says: Bash Tips

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tabstop

Google says: Bash Tips

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Very good - thanks for finding that tabstop. I did not think of using the shell to check, but I will certainly remember this for future use.