Byte ordering and addressing of objects stored in memory
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A multi-byte object is stored as contiguous sequence of bytes, with the address of the object given by the smallest address of the bytes used.
The bytes of an object can be ordered in two ways:
Little endian: Bytes of the object are ordered from least significant byte to most significant byte
Big endian: Bytes of the object are ordered from most significant byte to least significant byte
Example of little and big endian
int x = 0x01234567; // The address of x is 0x100
Problems with byte ordering
When data produced from little endian machine is received by big endian machine, or vise-versa, it can cause problems.
To avoid such scenarios, code written must follow established conventions to make sure that the bytes are ordered in a pre-agreed way for both the machines.
