Big Endian and Little Endian

All computers do not store the bytes that comprise a multi-byte value in the same order. Consider a 16-bit internet that is made up of 2 bytes. Two ways to store this value −

• Little Endian − In this scheme, low-order byte is stored on the starting address (A) and high-order byte is stored on the next address (A + 1).

• Big Endian − In this scheme, high-order byte is stored on the starting address (A) and low-order byte is stored on the next address (A + 1).

To allow machines with different byte order conventions communicate with each other, the Internet protocols specify a canonical byte order convention for data transmitted over the network. This is known as Network Byte Order.

By these definitions, a 32-bit data pattern, which is regarded as a 32-bit unsigned integer. The "high- Order" byte is the one for the largest powers of 2: 2³¹, ..., 2²⁴. The "low-order" byte is the one for the smallest powers of 2: 2⁷, ..., 2⁰.

Example

0x12674592 in 32-bit representation can be stored as −