Endianness is about byte address order. Little endian means the lower significant bytes get the lower addresses. Big endian means the other way around. So it’s about the bytes (8-bit chunks) not nibbles (4-bit chunks). Most computers we use (there are a few exceptions) address bytes at the individual address level. Taking the -12 example: … Read more
I’ve looked around the net a bit for more information on this question and there is a quite a range of answers and reasonings to explain why big or little endian ordering may be preferable. I’ll do my best to explain here what I found: Little-endian The obvious advantage to little-endianness is what you mentioned … Read more
In C, C++ int n = 1; // little endian if true if(*(char *)&n == 1) {…} See also: Perl version