Why are 8, 16, 32, and 64-bit integers supported rather than the built-in +char, short, int, long, long long, etc?
+ ++ ++The primary use case, portable file or network data, needs these de facto +standard sizes. Using types that vary with the platform would greatly limit +portability for both programs and data.
+ +
Tomas Puverle was instrumental in identifying and articulating the need to
support endian conversion as separate from endian integer types. Phil Endecott suggested the form of the value returning signatures. Vicente Botet and other reviewers suggested supporting floating point types and user defined types. General reverse template implementation approach using std::reverse suggested by Mathias Gaunard. Portable implementation approach for 16, 32, and 64-bit integers suggested by tymofey, with avoidance of undefined behavior as suggested by Giovanni Piero Deretta, and a further refinement suggested by Pyry Jahkola. Intrinsic builtins implementation approach for 16, 32, and 64-bit integers suggested by several reviewers, and by David Stone, who provided his Boost licensed macro implementation that became the starting point for boost/endian/detail/intrinsic.hpp.
Pierre Talbot provided the int8_t endian_reverse() and templated