1.5. SKELETON FILE

that seems the most natural. The biggest (i.e. most significant) byte is stored first, then the next biggest, etc. For example, the dword 00000004 would be stored as the four bytes 00 00 00 04. IBM mainframes, most RISC processors and Motorola processors all use this big endian method. However, Intel-based processors use the little endian method! Here the least significant byte is stored first. So, 00000004 is stored in memory as 04 00 00 00. This format is hardwired into the CPU and can not be changed. Normally, the programmer does not need to worry about which format is used. However, there are circumstances where it is important.

1.When binary data is transfered between di erent computers (either from files or through a network).

2.When binary data is written out to memory as a multibyte integer and then read back as individual bytes or vice versa.

Endianness does not apply to the order of array elements. The first element of an array is always at the lowest address. This applies to strings (which are just character arrays). Endianness still applies to the individual elements of the arrays.

1.5Skeleton File

Figure 1.7 shows a skeleton file that can be used as a starting point for writing assembly programs.