External Data Representation

External Data Representation (XDR) is a <a href="/facts/Technical_standard/P4orT1SM">standard</a> <a href="/facts/Data_serialization/T00auFvv">data serialization</a> format, for uses such as <a href="/facts/Computer_network/3w5RM99p">computer network</a> protocols. It allows data to be transferred between different kinds of computer systems. Converting from the local representation to XDR is called encoding. Converting from XDR to the local representation is called decoding. XDR is implemented as a software library of functions which is portable between different <a href="/facts/Operating_system/8XTuvMh2">operating systems</a> and is also independent of the <a href="/facts/Transport_layer/UmIGUCeK">transport layer</a>.
XDR uses a base unit of 4 bytes, serialized in <a href="/facts/Big-endian/wbrQnyu3">big-endian</a> order; smaller data types still occupy four bytes each after encoding. Variable-length types such as string and opaque are padded to a total divisible by four bytes. <a href="/facts/Floating-point_number/eIckahxe">Floating-point numbers</a> are represented in <a href="/facts/IEEE_754/dD3e7zAl">IEEE 754</a> format.

External Data Representation open-in-new

External Data Representation