2006.04.04 02:43 "Re: [Tiff] WORDS_BIGENDIAN makes libtiff platform dependent", by Graeme Gill

Based on prevailing evidence, I believe that you are correct. Here are the ChangeLog entries:

2005-06-03  Andrey Kiselev  <dron@ak4719.spb.edu>

         * libtiff/tif_open.c: Replace runtime endianess check with the  compile

         time one.

2004-08-16  Andrey Kiselev  <dron@ak4719.spb.edu>

         * tools/ras2tiff.c: Fixed issue with missed big-endian checks as per
         bug http://bugzilla.remotesensing.org/show_bug.cgi?id=586

I expect that the BigTIFF support (planned for libtiff 4.0) is going to require more knowledge of its evironment since a 64-bit type needs to be identified. Some target-specific configuration will always be required.

Hmm. The tif_open.c changelog says what has changed, but not *why* it has changed.

Even BigTIFF support doesn't imply any need for compile time endian dependent (nor 64 bit dependent) code.

You could write BigTIFF support in such a way that it will run on a 32 bit machine, and doesn't even need compiler support for long long. You may not want to this of course.

Graeme Gill.