Ruben Safir ruben-at-mrbrklyn.com=
writes:

There is an aspect of this I just don=E2=80=99t understand. Why does the=
order remain intact without ntohl when you look byte by byte through the a=
llocated memory, but the order is reversed when you evaluate it as a contin=
uous 32 bit unsigned int variable

Memory is essentially just an array of bytes, because memory is=
byte-addressable. The addressable unit is never smaller than a byte =E2=80=
=93 you can=E2=80=99t have a pointer just to a bit or three.

And if you THINK have a pointer to something bigger than a byte, you REA=
LLY DON=E2=80=99T. You STILL just have a pointer to a byte, but when you re=
ad from it we=E2=80=99re going to also read the next several bytes.

So when you do that, the way that larger values (such as 32-bit integers=
) are stored as bytes MATTERS. And different machines do it differently. (B=
TW, historically there isn=E2=80=99t just big- and little-endian, some mach=
ines used other alternatives that are often called =E2=80=9Cmiddle-endian=
=E2=80=9D! Thank your $deity (if any) that those architectures are now exti=
nct.)

I think this page helps: /cmsc311/Notes/Data/endian.html" class=3D"uri">https://www.cs.umd.edu/class=
/sum2003/cmsc311/Notes/Data/endian.html

CL