biffswap

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Name

biffswap - swap byte order for bands in biff-file

Syntax

 biffswap <infile> <outfile>

Description

Swap byte order for bands in biff-file. Works for all pixel types, including complex and double complex.

There is usually no need to use this program, because XITE takes care of swapping bytes automatically. If an image (with multi-byte pixeltype) is written with an XITE version prior to 3.0 and read with version 3.0 or later, or vice versa, use the following procedure.

Determine the version of your XITE copy either by running
xshow with option -ver or by reading the file $XITE_HOME/etc/.install/VERSION. If the option is not recognized and the file does not exist, the version number is less than 3.0.

Determine the endian-ness of the writing and reading hosts.
Examples of little-endian computers: DecStation, Dec alpha, PC (Intel x86).

Examples of big-endian computers: Sun, Silicon Graphics.

Image written with version < 3.0, read with version >= 3.0
If the writing host was little-endian, convert the image first with the biffswap program (of version >= 3.0) on the reading host (regardless of reading host's endian-ness). Otherwise, no explicit conversion is necessary.

Image written with version >= 3.0, read with version < 3.0
This should not happen too often.
Writing host was little-endian
With a little-endian reading-host, convert the image with biffswap (of version >= 3.0) on a big-endian machine. With a big-endian reading-host, the image can not be used. In this case, solve your problem by upgrading XITE on the reading-host.

Writing host was big-endian
With a little-endian reading-host, convert the image with biffswap (of version >= 3.0) on a big-endian host or with biffswap (of version < 3.0) on a little-endian host. With a big-endian reading-host, no explicit conversion is necessary.

Return value

0

See also

biff_swap(3)

Author

Otto Milvang

Id

$Id: biffswap.c,v 1.17 1996/11/08 14:02:55 svein Exp $