Is there a better way to reverse an array of bytes in memory?

Question

typedef unsigned char Byte;

...

void ReverseBytes( void *start, int size )
{
    Byte *buffer = (Byte *)(start);

    for( int i = 0; i < size / 2; i++ ) {
             


        

Answer 1

If you're reversing binary data from a file with different endianness you should probably use the ntoh* and hton* functions, which convert specified data sizes from network to host order and vice versa. ntohl for instance converts a 32 bit unsigned long from big endian (network order) to host order (little endian on x86 machines).

Answer 2

A performant solution without using the STL:

void reverseBytes(void *start, int size) {
    unsigned char *lo = start;
    unsigned char *hi = start + size - 1;
    unsigned char swap;
    while (lo < hi) {
        swap = *lo;
        *lo++ = *hi;
        *hi-- = swap;
    }
}

Though the question is 3 ½ years old, chances are that someone else will be searching for the same thing. That's why I still post this.

Answer 3

I would review the stl::swap and make sure it's optimized; after that I'd say you're pretty optimal for space. I'm reasonably sure that's time-optimal as well.

Answer 4

If you need to reverse there is a chance that you can improve your algorithms and just use reverse iterators.

Answer 5

The standard library has a std::reverse function:

#include <algorithm>
void ReverseBytes( void *start, int size )
{
    char *istart = start, *iend = istart + size;
    std::reverse(istart, iend);
}