Python pack and unpack question

[joe shoemaker]

If you have the following:

data = unpack('>L', sock.recv(4))

Does this line of code means that incoming data is big endian and
unpack it to endianess of local machine? If local machine is little
endian, then big endian is automatically converted to little endian
format?

thank you.

[Mark Tolonen]

"joe shoemaker" <jo***********@ gmail.comwrote in message
news:ma******** *************** ************@py thon.org...

If you have the following:

data = unpack('>L', sock.recv(4))

Does this line of code means that incoming data is big endian and
unpack it to endianess of local machine? If local machine is little
endian, then big endian is automatically converted to little endian
format?

thank you.

Try it:

>>data = unpack('>L','\x aa\xbb\xcc\xdd' )
data

(2864434397L,)

>>hex(data[0])

'0xaabbccddL'

>>data = unpack('>L','\x 11\x22\x33\x44' )
data

(287454020,)

>>hex(data[0])

'0x11223344'

>>>

Yes, it treats the incoming data as big-endian. The Python data type
returned varies as needed to hold the value. You'd get the same results on
a big-endian and little-endian local machine. How the Python data type is
represented internally is an implementation detail and could be anything.
--
Mark