[Python-checkins] [doc] struct: update note about network byte order form to be more helpful (GH-22201)

[Miss Islington (bot)]

https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/e4c6947024d5ad3d90c0a35f762bb85ccc2b0092
commit: e4c6947024d5ad3d90c0a35f762bb85ccc2b0092
branch: 3.8
author: Miss Islington (bot) <31488909+miss-islington at users.noreply.github.com>
committer: GitHub <noreply at github.com>
date: 2020-09-11T08:29:04-07:00
summary:

[doc] struct: update note about network byte order form to be more helpful (GH-22201)


Update the sentence to provide some context on why network byte order is defined as big endian.
(cherry picked from commit fb2718720346c8c7a0ad2d7477f20e9a5524ea0c)

Co-authored-by: Stargirl Flowers <theaflowers at google.com>

files:
M Doc/library/struct.rst

diff --git a/Doc/library/struct.rst b/Doc/library/struct.rst
index 56b0a3614df53..278cb19f5b472 100644
--- a/Doc/library/struct.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/struct.rst
@@ -159,8 +159,8 @@ the :ref:`format-characters` section.
 Note the difference between ``'@'`` and ``'='``: both use native byte order, but
 the size and alignment of the latter is standardized.
 
-The form ``'!'`` is available for those poor souls who claim they can't remember
-whether network byte order is big-endian or little-endian.
+The form ``'!'`` represents the network byte order which is always big-endian
+as defined in `IETF RFC 1700 <IETF RFC 1700_>`_.
 
 There is no way to indicate non-native byte order (force byte-swapping); use the
 appropriate choice of ``'<'`` or ``'>'``.
@@ -467,3 +467,5 @@ The :mod:`struct` module also defines the following type:
 .. _half precision format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-precision_floating-point_format
 
 .. _ieee 754 standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_floating_point#IEEE_754-2008
+
+.. _IETF RFC 1700: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1700