Big Endian vs Little Endian . . Microprocessor architectures commonly use two different methods to store the individual bytes in memory. This difference is referred to as “byte ordering” or “endian nature”. 🔹 Little Endian Intel x86 processors store a two-byte integer with the least significant byte first, followed by the most significant byte. This is called little-endian byte ordering. 🔹 Big Endian In big endian byte order, the most significant byte is stored at the lowest memory address, and the least significant byte is stored at the highest memory address. Older PowerPC and Motorola 68k architectures, often use big endian. In network communications and file storage, we also use big endian. The byte ordering becomes significant when data is transferred between systems or processed by systems with different endianness. It's important to handle byte order correctly to interpret data consistently across diverse systems. – Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get a Free System Design PDF (158 pages): https://bit.ly/3KCnWXq #systemdesign #coding #interviewtips .
File storage is not always big-endian. The very popular TIFF format for storing digital images supports platforms that are either little or big endian by writing a unique two-character signature at the start of the file, i.e. MM means big-endian (Motorola) and II means little-endian (Intel) formatting of various integer quantities in the file. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness#Files_and_filesystems
It reminds me of debugging over Motorola big Enidan platform almost 20 years ago 😁
Just to add a bit more, the terms “Big Endian” and “Little Endian” are derived from the book “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift. It’s also worth noting that some architectures, such as ARM, are bi-endian, meaning they can operate in either Big Endian or Little Endian mode. This can be useful in environments where both types of byte ordering are encountered.
Endian choice impacts performance and compatibility. Bi-endian systems offer flexibility for diverse network communications. Understanding endianess is vital in low-level programming and cross-system data consistency
Does anyone care about address 0x0002? 😄
So data sent between two machines powered by Intel x86 CPU will go through a conversion somewhere. In that case, if I use the machine powered by any BE CPU of the same capacity (let's say it exists, I don't know), can I say the data transfer will be much faster then?
Nice illustration, thank you very much 👏. I might contribute about where these terms (big/little endian) came from. I suprised when i heard it is originally from Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels book. Enthusiasts might search about it🙂
There is another bytes ordering like but is less common and have no agreed upon definition called Middle Endian. Bytes arranged that the most significant byte of the data type in the middle of the memory. Confusing, right?
Digital Transformation | IT Systems Expert | Solutions Architect
4moWould you please tell me whic tool are using to generate those awesome diagrams