Big endian machine: It thinks the first byte it reads is the biggest.
Little endian machine: It thinks the first byte it reads is the littlest.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
union {
short s;
char c[sizeof(short)];
} un;
un.s = 0x0102;
if (sizeof(short) == 2) {
if (un.c[0] == 1 && un.c[1] == 2)
printf("big-endian\n");
else if (un.c[0] == 2 && un.c[1] == 1)
printf("little-endian\n");
else
printf("unknown\n");
} else
printf("sizeof(short) = %d\n", sizeof(short));
exit(0);
}
总结一下:big endian是适合大家的阅读顺序,little endian则相反。