kau'au KAUhAI experimental cmavo

Macrodigit-spanning endianness binary-toggle.

Switches the endianness of the macrodigits in all subsequent numeric strings (during their interpretation phase) from big-endian to little-endian or vice-versa; the internal structure (microdigit interpretation) of each macrodigit is not affected. So, for example, in the context of specifying a month of the year and a day of the month, exactly "kau'au pa re pi'e pa no" is in little-endian mode for exactly its macrodigits and means only the twelfth day of the tenth month (and not the twenty-first day of the first month, the tenth day of the twelfth month, the first day of the twenty-first month (if it existed), or anything else); meanwhile, exactly "kau'au kau'au pa re pi'e pa no" is big-endian for exactly its macrodigits and means only the tenth day of the twelfth month (and not the twenty-first day of the first month, the twelfth day of the tenth month, the first day of the twenty-first month (if it existed), or anything else). Without prior specification or context, Lojban assumes a big-endian setting (although such language is never explicitly used in the CLL), except for certain brivla (such as detri, currently); in such a case or in any case whatsoever other than having previously and still-actively and explicitly specified the little-endian interpretation, including bi-endian or middle-endian etc./vel sim. cases, the first active and explicit usage of this word (called the "original usage" here) switches the interpretation to little-endian; thereafter, each usage will toggle between big-endian (all odd-numbered subsequent occurrences) and then back to little-endian (all even-numbered subsequent occurrences), where the original usage (which switched away from contextless default or non-little-endian interpretation) is counted as the zeroth usage. This function is an involution (at least after the original usage). It terminates as kau'ai does: with the closing of the scope of li, the usage of a brivla or gadri or du (or the like) or boi, or the overarching specification for the text (iff used therein); it does span over (not terminate with) VUhU. For now, it really should not be used within the same numeric string. Notice that exactly "kau'au pa re ci" still means "one hundred twenty-three" because there is only one macrodigit (so, its now being little-endian is inconsequential) and its microdigits are still big-endian, assuming contextless default. See also: kau'ai.


In notes:

kau'ai (exp!)
Microdigit-spanning endianness binary-toggle.
endi
x1 (digit string/byte, storage system, convention) has endianness x2 ("ce'o" sequence of numbers (li); description (ka?)); x1 is x2-endian.