Question

Show how the value 0xabcdef12 would be arranged in memory of a little-endian and a big-endian machine. Assume the data is stored starting at address 0

Short answer

Little-endian
Data	Address
ab	12
cd	8
ef	4
12	0

Big-endian
Data	Address
12	12
ef	8
cd	4
ab	0

Step-by-step solution

Most-significant Bit and Least-Significant Bit

The most-significant bit is the left-most bit of any binary number. It is denoted as MSB

For example, in 1000, the most-significant bit is 1.

The Least-significant bit is the rightmost bit of any binary number. It is denoted as LSB.

For example, in 1010, the least-significant bit is 0.

Determine little-endian and big-endian.

The little-endian stores the LSB in the first memory address.

For the given value, the starting address is 0.

So the value is stored in Little-endian format as follows:

Little-endian
Data	Address
ab	12
cd	8
ef	4
12	0

The Big-endian stores the MSB in the first memory address.

For the given value, the starting address is 12.

So the value is stored in Big-endian format as follows:

Big-endian
Data	Address
12	12
ef	8
cd	4
ab	0