Sub.jam

Links
Writing Cross-Platform Software: Getting Started
Data alignment: Straighten up and fly right
Byte Alignment and Ordering

Examples
1. A simple code snippet to test whether a given architecture is big- or little-endian (copy from the book "Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love):

int x = 1;

if(*(char *)&x == 1)
  /* little endian */
else
  /* big endian */

2. Routines to convert between big-endian and little-endian formats: (copy from Byte Alignment and Ordering)

short convert_short(short in)
{
  short out;
  char *p_in = (char *) ∈
  char *p_out = (char *) &out;
  p_out[0] = p_in[1];
  p_out[1] = p_in[0];  
  return out;
}

long convert_long(long in)
{
  long out;
  char *p_in = (char *) ∈
  char *p_out = (char *) &out;
  p_out[0] = p_in[3];
  p_out[1] = p_in[2];
  p_out[2] = p_in[1];
  p_out[3] = p_in[0];  
  return out;
}