Types of endianness

There are two approaches to endian mapping: address invariance and data invariance. Address Invariance In this type of mapping, the address of bytes is always preserved between big and little. This has the side effect of reversing the order of significance (most significant to least significant) of a particular datum (e.g. 2 or 4 byte … Read more

Little Endian vs Big Endian?

Endianness is about byte address order. Little endian means the lower significant bytes get the lower addresses. Big endian means the other way around. So it’s about the bytes (8-bit chunks) not nibbles (4-bit chunks). Most computers we use (there are a few exceptions) address bytes at the individual address level. Taking the -12 example: … Read more