swab(3) Linux Man Page - System Grab Bag

Name

swab - swap adjacent bytes

Library

Standard C library ( libc ", " -lc )

Synopsis

"#define(7)_XOPEN_SOURCE" "       /* See feature_test_macros */" #include <unistd.h> 
void swab(const void " from "[restrict ." n "], void " to "[restrict . n ],
          ssize_t  n );

Description

The swab() function copies n bytes from the array pointed to by from to the array pointed to by to, exchanging adjacent even and odd bytes. This function is used to exchange data between machines that have different low/high byte ordering.

This function does nothing when n is negative. When n is positive and odd, it handles n-1 bytes as above, and does something unspecified with the last byte. (In other words, n should be even.)

Return Value

The swab() function returns no value.

Attributes

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7). allbox; lbx lb lb T{ swab()

Interface	Attribute	Value
T}	Thread safety	MT-Safe

Standards

POSIX.1-2008.

History

POSIX.1-2001, SVr4, 4.3BSD.