On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 3:02 PM Matthew Woehlke via Std-Discussion <
std-discussion_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> So, let's say you have an image file that is big-endian encoded on a
> little-endian system. You need to know the dimensions. How do you get
> those as numbers the CPU can actually use? Do you just read everything a
> byte at a time?
>
> The usual method, at least in my experience, is to do a block read of
> the header (ideally, directly into a struct) and byte-swap the various
> numeric values from file-endian to machine-endian.
>
> For example:
>
> struct foo_header {...};
>
> foo_header h;
> fread(fin, &h, sizeof(foo_header), 1);
> h.width = byteswap(h.width);
> h.height = byteswap(h.height);
> // ...etc.
>

That means your code is dependent on machine endianness; you don't want to
byteswap if your system is already big-endian, same as the file.

Better to write:

  h.width = bigEndianToHost(h.width);
  h.height = bigEndianToHost(h.height);

POSIX got this right with ntohl/htonl etc., even if the abbreviations are a
little cryptic.