Date:	Mon, 01 Aug 1994 13:30:34 +0100
From:	"Th. Eifert" <EIFERT AT reze-1 DOT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Subject:	Re: help with reading floats from file
To:	djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Reply-To:	eifert AT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de
Organization:	Rechenzentrum RWTH Aachen

> >   I have trouble reading binary floating point data (4bytes/value) from a
> >   file generated on a sun/unix into my code compiled with djgpp.
> 
> For starters, Suns are big-endian and i386 are little-endian, so
> binary formats in general (even integers) are not going to be
> compatible.
> 
> Secondly, floating point binary formats aren't guaranteed to be the
> same across platforms.
> 
> You're best bet is to convert the values to strings for file storage.
> 
> 
> 
To be more general: all machines, that support IEEE-conformant 
floating point representation (e.g. Silicon Graphics, IBM, SUN ...)
have no problems to exchange floats among each other using binary
transfer.
Just those machines, that use a non-standardized format, make us the
problems mentioned above.

Thomas

 +------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | Thomas Eifert                                                    |
 |                                                                  |
 | Aachen University of Technology        RWTH Aachen               |
 | Computing Center                       Rechenzentrum             |
 |                                        Seffenter Weg 23          |
 |                                        D-52074 Aachen            |
 |                                                                  |
 | E-Mail: eifert AT rz DOT RWTH-Aachen DOT de       Tel.:  (0241) 80-4890     |
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