From: kim.walisch@googlemail.com   
      
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   > unsigned char* buffer = new char[...];   
   > v32 = *((uint32_t*)(buffer)) //unaligned reads??   
      
   The C++ standard requires that memory returned by new is at least   
   aligned to sizeof(void*). As far as I know GCC aligns memory to   
   sizeof(void*) * 2 (= 8 for 32-bit, = 16 for 64-bit), so you won't   
   get an unaligned read here. But there is an other problem, v32 will   
   have different values on little-endian and big-endian CPUs:   
      
   little-edian v32 = buffer[0] | (buffer[1] << 8) | (buffer[2] << 16) |   
   (buffer[3] << 24);   
   big-edian    v32 = buffer[3] | (buffer[2] << 8) | (buffer[1] << 16) |   
   (buffer[0] << 24);   
      
   Your cast C-style cast (uint32_t*) is in fact a C++ reinterpret_cast   
   which should be avoided most of the time. Your memcpy code is not   
   endian safe either.   
      
      
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