From: Richard D Riehle <LaoXhai@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Big-endian vs little-endian
Date: 1999/02/04
Date: 1999-02-04T13:39:37-06:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <79ct1p$7oe@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7982p9$nll$3@plug.news.pipex.net
In article <7982p9$nll$3@plug.news.pipex.net>,
"Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>I can think of two possible solutions:
>
>(a) [ snipped >
>(b) use Text_IO instead of Sequential_IO, and input and output the data in
>the form of text.
>
>The advantage of (b) is that text is the most universal data format:
The Text_IO solution is especially useful when converting floating point
from one machine to floating point on another. For example, where is the
sign bit on a VAX 32 floating point number? You'd be surprised! We were
converting VAX floating point to IBM mainframe floating point. People
came up with all sorts of algorithmic solutions. The best solution was
to write the VAX numbers to a text file and read the text file back to
to the IBM. No fuss. No muss. No algorithmic gymnastics.
Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com
http://www.adaworks.com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-02-04 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-01-29 0:00 Big-endian vs little-endian Mike Werner
1999-02-02 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-03 0:00 ` Mark A Biggar
1999-02-06 0:00 ` Samuel T. Harris
1999-02-08 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-08 0:00 ` Samuel T. Harris
1999-02-04 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle [this message]
1999-02-06 0:00 ` Mike Werner
1999-02-07 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-09 0:00 ` Stephen Leake
1999-02-10 0:00 ` Mike Werner
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