摘自Rob Pike的《字节顺序谬误》:

假设数据流有一个小端编码的32位整数。下面是如何提取它(假设无符号字节):

i = (data[0]<<0) | (data[1]<<8) | (data[2]<<16) | ((unsigned)data[3]<<24);

如果它是big-endian，下面是如何提取它:

i = (data[3]<<0) | (data[2]<<8) | (data[1]<<16) | ((unsigned)data[0]<<24);

TL;DR:不要担心你的平台原生顺序，重要的是你从中读取的流的字节顺序，你最好希望它是定义良好的。

注1:这里int和unsigned int是32位，否则类型可能需要调整。

注2:最后一个字节必须在移位前显式转换为unsigned，因为默认情况下它被提升为int，移位24位意味着操作符号位，这是未定义行为。

如果您这样做是为了在不同平台之间传输数据，请查看ntoh和hton函数。

认真……我不明白为什么所有的解决方案都那么复杂!最简单、最通用的模板函数如何?它可以在任何操作系统的任何情况下交换任何大小的任何类型????

template <typename T>
void SwapEnd(T& var)
{
    static_assert(std::is_pod<T>::value, "Type must be POD type for safety");
    std::array<char, sizeof(T)> varArray;
    std::memcpy(varArray.data(), &var, sizeof(T));
    for(int i = 0; i < static_cast<int>(sizeof(var)/2); i++)
        std::swap(varArray[sizeof(var) - 1 - i],varArray[i]);
    std::memcpy(&var, varArray.data(), sizeof(T));
}

这是C和c++结合的神奇力量!只需逐个字符交换原始变量。

要点1:没有操作符:请记住，我没有使用简单的赋值操作符“=”，因为当反转字节序时，一些对象将被打乱，复制构造函数(或赋值操作符)将不起作用。因此，一个字符一个字符地复制它们更加可靠。

Point 2: Be aware of alignment issues: Notice that we're copying to and from an array, which is the right thing to do because the C++ compiler doesn't guarantee that we can access unaligned memory (this answer was updated from its original form for this). For example, if you allocate uint64_t, your compiler cannot guarantee that you can access the 3rd byte of that as a uint8_t. Therefore, the right thing to do is to copy this to a char array, swap it, then copy it back (so no reinterpret_cast). Notice that compilers are mostly smart enough to convert what you did back to a reinterpret_cast if they're capable of accessing individual bytes regardless of alignment.

使用此函数:

double x = 5;
SwapEnd(x);

现在x的字节序不同了。

我从这篇文章中得到了一些建议，并把它们放在一起形成了这个:

#include <boost/type_traits.hpp>
#include <boost/static_assert.hpp>
#include <boost/detail/endian.hpp>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <cstdint>

enum endianness
{
    little_endian,
    big_endian,
    network_endian = big_endian,
    
    #if defined(BOOST_LITTLE_ENDIAN)
        host_endian = little_endian
    #elif defined(BOOST_BIG_ENDIAN)
        host_endian = big_endian
    #else
        #error "unable to determine system endianness"
    #endif
};

namespace detail {

template<typename T, size_t sz>
struct swap_bytes
{
    inline T operator()(T val)
    {
        throw std::out_of_range("data size");
    }
};

template<typename T>
struct swap_bytes<T, 1>
{
    inline T operator()(T val)
    {
        return val;
    }
};

template<typename T>
struct swap_bytes<T, 2>
{
    inline T operator()(T val)
    {
        return ((((val) >> 8) & 0xff) | (((val) & 0xff) << 8));
    }
};

template<typename T>
struct swap_bytes<T, 4>
{
    inline T operator()(T val)
    {
        return ((((val) & 0xff000000) >> 24) |
                (((val) & 0x00ff0000) >>  8) |
                (((val) & 0x0000ff00) <<  8) |
                (((val) & 0x000000ff) << 24));
    }
};

template<>
struct swap_bytes<float, 4>
{
    inline float operator()(float val)
    {
        uint32_t mem =swap_bytes<uint32_t, sizeof(uint32_t)>()(*(uint32_t*)&val);
        return *(float*)&mem;
    }
};

template<typename T>
struct swap_bytes<T, 8>
{
    inline T operator()(T val)
    {
        return ((((val) & 0xff00000000000000ull) >> 56) |
                (((val) & 0x00ff000000000000ull) >> 40) |
                (((val) & 0x0000ff0000000000ull) >> 24) |
                (((val) & 0x000000ff00000000ull) >> 8 ) |
                (((val) & 0x00000000ff000000ull) << 8 ) |
                (((val) & 0x0000000000ff0000ull) << 24) |
                (((val) & 0x000000000000ff00ull) << 40) |
                (((val) & 0x00000000000000ffull) << 56));
    }
};

template<>
struct swap_bytes<double, 8>
{
    inline double operator()(double val)
    {
        uint64_t mem =swap_bytes<uint64_t, sizeof(uint64_t)>()(*(uint64_t*)&val);
        return *(double*)&mem;
    }
};

template<endianness from, endianness to, class T>
struct do_byte_swap
{
    inline T operator()(T value)
    {
        return swap_bytes<T, sizeof(T)>()(value);
    }
};
// specialisations when attempting to swap to the same endianess
template<class T> struct do_byte_swap<little_endian, little_endian, T> { inline T operator()(T value) { return value; } };
template<class T> struct do_byte_swap<big_endian,    big_endian,    T> { inline T operator()(T value) { return value; } };

} // namespace detail

template<endianness from, endianness to, class T>
inline T byte_swap(T value)
{
    // ensure the data is only 1, 2, 4 or 8 bytes
    BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT(sizeof(T) == 1 || sizeof(T) == 2 || sizeof(T) == 4 || sizeof(T) == 8);
    // ensure we're only swapping arithmetic types
    BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT(boost::is_arithmetic<T>::value);

    return detail::do_byte_swap<from, to, T>()(value);
}

然后你可以这样使用它:

// swaps val from host-byte-order to network-byte-order
auto swapped = byte_swap<host_endian, network_endian>(val);

反之亦然

// swap a value received from the network into host-byte-order
auto val = byte_swap<network_endian, host_endian>(val_from_network);

如果你这样做是为了网络/主机兼容性，你应该使用:

ntohl() //Network to Host byte order (Long)
htonl() //Host to Network byte order (Long)

ntohs() //Network to Host byte order (Short)
htons() //Host to Network byte order (Short)

如果是出于其他原因，这里提供的byte_swap解决方案之一也可以很好地工作。

这是我想到的一个通用版本，用于在适当的位置交换值。如果性能存在问题，其他建议会更好。

 template<typename T>
    void ByteSwap(T * p)
    {
        for (int i = 0;  i < sizeof(T)/2;  ++i)
            std::swap(((char *)p)[i], ((char *)p)[sizeof(T)-1-i]);
    }

免责声明:我还没有尝试编译或测试它。