Read long int from binary file

[Phil Stracchino]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 12:19:25PM -0400, John Roth wrote:
> "Enrico Morelli" <enrico_morelli at yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:pan.2003.10.14.15.37.50.602541 at yahoo.com...
> > I have to write a program which reads from a binary file, a serious of
> > 32 bit long integer data and stores its in an array.
> > I cannot know the format (little or big endian) and I have to perform the
> > properly 4 byte reverse order swapping.
> 
> As a general rule, the problem is unsolvable. However, there are
> two practical special cases. One is that you may be able to determine
> based on the source of the file; different computers and different
> protocols have specific requirments.

Is it feasible for you to have a known value placed at the start of the
file as a "magic" number that you can use for endianness detection?


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