hton(3)

NAME
     hton, htons, htonl, ntohs, ntohl - host to network byte order conversion

SYNOPSIS
     #define _MINIX_SOURCE 1
     #include <stddef.h>
     #include <sys/types.h>

     #include <net/hton.h>

     u16_t htons(u16_t host_word)
     u32_t htonl(u32_t host_dword)
     u16_t ntohs(u16_t network_word)
     u32_t ntohl(u32_t network_dword)
     u16_t HTONS(u16_t host_word)
     u32_t HTONL(u32_t host_dword)
     u16_t NTOHS(u16_t network_word)
     u32_t NTOHL(u32_t network_dword)

DESCRIPTION
     These macros convert 16-bit and 32-bit quantities to and from the network
     byte  order  used by the TCP/IP protocols.  The function of the macros is
     encoded in their name.  H means host byte order,  n  means  network  byte
     order,  s  means  a  16-bit quantity and l means a 32-bit quantity.  Thus
     htons converts a 16-bit quantity from host byte  order  to  network  byte
     order.   The difference between the lower case and upper case variants is
     that the lower case variants evaluate the argument at most once  and  the
     upper case variants can be used for constant folding.  That is,

          htonl(f(x))

     will call f(x) at most once and

          HTONS(0x10)

     will be equivalent to 0x10 on  a  big-endian  machine  and  0x1000  on  a
     little-endian machine.

SEE ALSO
     ip(4).

AUTHOR
     Philip Homburg (philip@cs.vu.nl)