RFC 1010 (rfc1010) - Page 2 of 44
Assigned numbers
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1010 - Assigned Numbers May 1987 right hand margin of the page indicates a reference for the listed protocol, where the number ("nn") cites the document and the letters ("iii") cites the person. Whenever possible, the letters are a NIC Ident as used in the WhoIs (NICNAME) service. The convention in the documentation of Internet Protocols is to express numbers in decimal and to picture data in "big-endian" order [14]. That is, fields are described left to right, with the most significant octet on the left and the least significant octet on the right. The order of transmission of the header and data described in this document is resolved to the octet level. Whenever a diagram shows a group of octets, the order of transmission of those octets is the normal order in which they are read in English. For example, in the following diagram the octets are transmitted in the order they are numbered. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Transmission Order of Bytes Whenever an octet represents a numeric quantity the left most bit in the diagram is the high order or most significant bit. That is, the bit labeled 0 is the most significant bit. For example, the following diagram represents the value 170 (decimal). 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Significance of Bits Similarly, whenever a multi-octet field represents a numeric quantity the left most bit of the whole field is the most significant bit. When a multi-octet quantity is transmitted the most significant octet is transmitted first. Reynolds & Postel
