changeset 17680:786628f8db88

Add a practical description of endian-independent RGB/BGR coding

--- a/DOCS/tech/colorspaces.txt	Fri Feb 24 21:50:13 2006 +0000
+++ b/DOCS/tech/colorspaces.txt	Fri Feb 24 22:18:45 2006 +0000
@@ -135,3 +135,24 @@
 
 Depending upon the CPU being little- or big-endian, different 'in memory' and
 'in register' formats will be equal (LE -> BGRA == BGR32 / BE -> ARGB == BGR32)
+
+Practical coding guide:
+
+The 4, 8, 15, and 16 bit formats are defined so that the portable way to
+access them is to load the pixel into an integer and use bitmasks.
+
+The 24 bit formats are defined so that the portable way to access them is
+to address the 3 components as separate bytes, as in ((uint8_t *)pixel)[0],
+((uint8_t *)pixel)[1], ((uint8_t *)pixel)[2].
+
+When a 32-bit format is identified by the four characters A, R, G, and B in
+some order, the portable way to access it is by addressing the 4 components
+as separate bytes.
+
+When a 32-bit format is identified by the 3 characters R, G, and B in some
+order followed by the number 32, the portable way to access it is to load
+the pixel into an integer and use bitmasks.
+
+When the above portable access methods are not used, you will need to write
+2 versions of your code, and use #ifdef WORDS_BIGENDIAN to choose the correct
+one.