What is Endianness? Big-Endian vs Little-Endian
What is Endianness?
Different languages read their text in different orders. English reads from left to right, for example, while Arabic is read right to left.
This is exactly what endianness is for computers.
If my computer reads bytes from left to right, and your computer reads from right to left, we're going to have issues when we need to communicate.
Endianness means that the bytes in computer memory are read in a certain order.
We won't have any issues if we never need to share information. Each computer is internally consistent for their own data. It's just the internet has enabled us to share more data than we ever have before, and our data is not always read in the same order.
Endianness is represented two ways Big-endian (BE) and Little-endian (LE).
BE stores the big-end first. When reading multiple bytes the first byte (or the lowest memory address) is the biggest - so it makes the most sense to people who read left to right.
LE stores the little-end first. When reading multiple bytes the first byte (or the lowest memory address) is the littlest - so it makes most sense to people who read right to left.
Different languages read their text in different orders. English reads from left to right, for example, while Arabic is read right to left.
This is exactly what endianness is for computers.
If my computer reads bytes from left to right, and your computer reads from right to left, we're going to have issues when we need to communicate.
Endianness means that the bytes in computer memory are read in a certain order.
We won't have any issues if we never need to share information. Each computer is internally consistent for their own data. It's just the internet has enabled us to share more data than we ever have before, and our data is not always read in the same order.
Endianness is represented two ways Big-endian (BE) and Little-endian (LE).
BE stores the big-end first. When reading multiple bytes the first byte (or the lowest memory address) is the biggest - so it makes the most sense to people who read left to right.
LE stores the little-end first. When reading multiple bytes the first byte (or the lowest memory address) is the littlest - so it makes most sense to people who read right to left.
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