SDL_LIL_ENDIAN(3)

💖 SDL_LIL_ENDIAN(3) 💖

okay bestie so we're deep in the SDL3 FUNCTIONS section of the manual and today's main character is SDL_LIL_ENDIAN ✨ like yes, this whole page is about one lil number and honestly? iconic.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

SDL_LIL_ENDIAN — a value to represent littleendian byteorder. that's it. that's the whole vibe. a number that means "little endian" 💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <SDL3/SDL_endian.h>

#define SDL_LIL_ENDIAN  1234

so you pull in the header, and the macro is just... sitting there. being 1234. living its truth. no cap 🦋

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so here's the tea 🍓: this macro is used together with the preprocessor macro SDL_BYTEORDER to figure out what byte ordering a platform is rockin'. like, does this machine read its bytes left-to-right or right-to-left? vibe check incoming:

#if SDL_BYTEORDER == SDL_LIL_ENDIAN
SDL_Log("This system is littleendian.");
#endif

see how that works?? you compare SDL_BYTEORDER against SDL_LIL_ENDIAN inside an #if, and if they match, boom 💥 — your system is little endian and you log exactly that string. the compiler does the whole thing at preprocessing time, so it's giving free real estate, zero runtime cost, we love that for us 💖

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🌈 AVAILABILITY 🌈

this macro has been around since SDL 3.2.0. so if you're on anything older, sorry bestie, it's not there yet 😭

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• SDL_BYTEORDER(3)
• SDL_BIG_ENDIAN(3)

go read SDL_BYTEORDER for the actual comparison partner, and SDL_BIG_ENDIAN if your machine is built different in the other direction 🫶

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! brought to you by the Simple Directmedia Layer girlies, straight outta SDL 3.4.18 — go forth and byte-order responsibly 💜🦋✨