From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-09-23T00:13:20+09:00
Subject: Re: 64-bit integers in network byte-order

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, Francis Cianfrocca wrote:

> All,
> does Ruby have a way to convert 64-bit integers to and from network
> order in a platform-independent way?
>
> For 32-bit ints, I can use [value].pack("N"). The conversion operator
> for 64-bit ints ("Q") doesn't have a network-order variant. (I assume
> this is because the underlying byte-order converters (htons/htonl) don't
> have a 64-bit version on 32-bit platforms.)

i don't know the answer, but maybe a hack?

     harp:~ > cat a.rb
     class String
       LITTLE_ENDIAN = ([42].pack('i')[0] == 42)
       BIG_ENDIAN = !LITTLE_ENDIAN

       def hton!() BIG_ENDIAN ? self : replace(reverse) end
       def hton() dup.hton!  end
       def noth!() BIG_ENDIAN ? self : replace(reverse) end
       def noth() dup.noth!  end
     end

     forty_two = [42].pack('Q')
     p forty_two

     forty_two = [42].pack('Q').hton!
     p forty_two



     harp:~ > ruby a.rb
     "*\000\000\000\000\000\000\000"
     "\000\000\000\000\000\000\000*"


also, maybe joel's bitstruct package

   http://redshift.sourceforge.net/bit-struct/doc/index.html

regards.

-a
-- 
in order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is
likely to hurt. -- wei wu wei