(This relates to unpack and byteorder - tests fail on certain platforms).

The module Parse::Flash::Cookie comes with binary test files. These test files are collected from an Intel machine, and are thus little-endian, as described in perlport. These tests using these files obviously fail on big-endian platforms, such as sparc and powerpc.

$ uname -p
i686
$ perl -wle 'use Config; print $Config{byteorder}'
1234
[download]

Now I'm thinking that using these little-endian test files on a big-endian platform does not make sense, since these files would have been big-endian if they were originally saved on that platform. Is that correct?

For the module's next release, I have a number of options:

• Make the module die on big-endian platforms. (Easy, but rude).
• Skip testing on big-endian platforms (Tests more likely to pass, but there should be tests on all platforms).
• Ship both little-endian and big-endian test files, and test depending on endianness (Not currently possible since I don't have access to any big-endian platforms, thus neither big-endian test files nor big-endian test environment).

Your thoughts please.

Update: Thu Jan 17 08:09:37 CET 2008: almut has confirmed Grandfather's assertion that SOL files are little-endian regardless of platform. almut also points out how to interpret floating point numbers on big-endian platforms. Thank you all very much for answering.

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