endianness and sscanf/sprintf

[pramod]

Two different platforms communicate over protocols which consist of
functions and arguments in ascii form. System might be little
endian/big endian.

It is possible to format string using sprintf and retreive it using
sscanf.
Each parameter has a delimiter, data type size is ported to the
platform, and expected argument order is known.

Is this approach portable w.r.t. endianess ?
regards,
Pramod

[Ron Natalie]

"Keith Thompson" <ks***@mib.or g> wrote in message news:ln******** ****@nuthaus.mi b.org...

"Ron Natalie" <ro*@sensor.com > writes:
[...]

I've worked on 64 bit word machines. The CRAY is word
addressed...the re really is NO such hardware datatype other than 64
bit integrals and 64 bit reals. Char's are a unholy kludge in
software (they didn't even try anything else, sizeof any
non-comoosite type is either 8 or 64).

There have been a number of different Cray models, with different
architectures, but I think the vector systems (the oldest I've worked
on was the T90) have been fairly consistent in their data types.

I think you're quoting bit sizes rather than byte sizes. The C
compiler uses an 8-bit byte for compatibility with other systems, even
though there's no real hardware support for 8-bit operands.
sizeof(char) is 1, of course; sizeof(TYPE) is 8 (64 bits) for each of
short, int, and long.

Yes, I was talking bits. My experience was with the X/MP and then
the Y-MP EL processors. I actually bought a CRAY 2 in one job, but
I was gone by the time it was delivered.

[Gary Labowitz]

"Ron Natalie" <ro*@sensor.com > wrote in message
news:3f******** *************** @news.newshosti ng.com...

"Joe Wright" <jo********@ear thlink.net> wrote in message news:3F******** ***@earthlink.n et...

[snip]

The IBM 7094 came out in January 1963 and was the last of its ilk from
IBM. Its follow on was the S/360 in 1964. I never came across a "partial
word".

The 16-bit values were referred to as "halfword" and there were a variety
of operations that manipulated them. Loading a halfword into a register got
you sign extension, for example. AFAIK the term "partial word" was never
used.
--
Gary

[Lew Pitcher]

pete wrote:

Lew Pitcher wrote:

Martijn Lievaart wrote:
[snip]

Same with the unit words.
That means different things to different people.
The way I learned it at uni, very long time ago,
was that a word was the basic unit of storage.
Same as the definition of byte in C/C++. Along came
MicroSoft and institutionalis ed the word-size of
the 8086 as a WORD, so to others a word now is 16 bits.
I've seen even different uses of the word
'word', anyone got an example?

In the IBM mainframe world, a "word" (or "fullword")
has been 32bits for the
last 40+ years. A 16bit quantity is a "halfword".

I'm familiar with "word" having a similar meaning as
the traditional meaning of "int", having the
"natural size suggested by the architecture
of the execution environment"

IBM System/370 Principles of Operation (GA22-7000-4, September 1, 1975)

System Organization / Information Formats

"The system transmits information between main stroage and a CPU or
channel in units of eight bits, or a multiple of eight bits at a time.
Each eight-bit unit of information is called a /byte/, the basic building
block of all formats.
...
Bytes may be handled separately or grouped together in fields. A
/halfword/ is a group of two consecutive bytes and is the basic building
block of instructions. A /word/ is a group of four consecutive bytes; a
/doubleword/ is a group of eight bytes.
(It should be noted that the term "byte" in the above text refers to a
CPU-measured quantity, and /not/ to the terminology used by the C standard.)


--
Lew Pitcher, IT Consultant, Application Architecture
Enterprise Technology Solutions, TD Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's)