[GRASS5] new vector

[Radim Blazek]

"mi.ro at iol.it" <mi.ro at iol.it> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > i would like to discuss some problems related to new vector 
> > format/library i am working on.
> > 
> > 1) Little or big? Dig files are written (version 4) in portable vector 
> > format which is big endian byte order (note for David: I was wrong
> > in my last mail). 
> > On little endian machines (i386 for example) byte order of each
> > number must be changed. My test with d.vect says that such
> > conversion takes 8% of time
> 
> Hi Radim.
> 
> I've used, in the past, a little different model, where you
> check if the file byte-order matches or not the current platform
> byte-order. Thus avoiding unrequested conversions.
> In this case one should have the possibility to write files in both
> big and little endian flagged by a specific field, and/or
> be able to convert them.
> 
> Ciao.

Seems to be best for speed, I am bit wory about such byte order flexibility