> That way it can handle 'different word lengths'.

I meant reading a file that was written on a 32-bit machine with a 64-bit one. Or vice versa. Or 16-bit. Nowadays we have computers that have modes with any of those three word lengths.

> As for endianness, it's not even mentioned in the C standard (nor in the C++ standard)

If it isn't mentioned in a standard it doesn't exist?

I don't have a problem dumping structs like that to disk or a socket (done it myself for local apps), but that attitude is plain retarded.