Converting data to little endian

[Fredrik Lundh]

Travis Oliphant <olipt at mayo.edu> wrote:
> > Hi, I was wondering how to get my data to be represented in little
> > endian format.  I know that I can use the socket functions to convert to
> > network byte order (big endian), but I need to convert to little endian
> > (not just the host byte order).
> 
> One possibility is to use the NumPy extensions and store your data in a
> multiarray object.  There is a byteswapped method of the multiarray object
> that lets you byteswap your data.

footnote: the standard array module also provides
a byteswap operation:

>>> import array
>>> a = array.array("i", [1, 2])
>>> a
array('i', [1, 2])
>>> a.byteswap()
>>> a
array('i', [16777216, 33554432])

> There is also a way to check the endianness of your machine (so
> you can determine whether or not to byteswap).

from array-example-4.py in the eff-bot guide:

def little_endian():
    return ord(array.array("i",[1]).tostring()[0])

</F>