From: Nate Eldredge <neldredge AT hmc DOT edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: binary to float
Date: 25 Feb 2000 23:19:56 -0800
Organization: InterWorld Communications
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[Having now read the context of this article (thanks Dieter!):]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il> writes:

> On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Dieter Buerssner wrote:
> 
> > unsigned long l;
> > float x;
> > fread(&l, sizeof l, 1, fp);
> > l = ntohl(l);
> > x = *(float *)&l;
[...]
> > Also, one other problem might arise when 
> > unsigned long is 64bit (i.e. Alpha, which uses IEEE floating point).
> 
> I don't have access to an Alpha to check.  Anybody?

On the Alpha machines to which I have access, ntohl is prototyped
like:

extern uint32_t ntohl __P ((uint32_t __netlong));

So it's really ntoh32; it does a 32 bit word on any machine.  On an
Alpha, then, you'd just need to use an appropriate 32 bit type
(unsigned int).  I checked this on both Tru64 Unix 5.0 (DEC/Compaq's
native Unix) and Redhat Linux 6.1.

Btw, the Alpha access is through Compaq's "Test Drive" program.  If
interested, visit

http://www.testdrive.compaq.com/

and register, and they'll give you free access to a variety of Alpha
(and a few Intel) machines.  They have boxes running NT, VMS, Tru64,
several flavors of Linux, and FreeBSD.  It's quite nice.


-- 

Nate Eldredge
neldredge AT hmc DOT edu