Extremely Puzzling: Elixir Bitstring little-integer Encoding Issue (Confirmed in iex after Reinstall)

Hello everyone,

I’m encountering a truly baffling and persistent issue with Elixir’s bitstring syntax for little-endian integer encoding, and I’m hoping someone here might have seen something similar or can
shed some light on it.

The Problem: When attempting to convert a specific 32-bit unsigned integer (1749397227) to its little-endian binary representation, both the direct bitstring syntax
(<integer::unsigned-little-integer-size(32)>) and Erlang’s :binary.encode_unsigned(:little) function produce an incorrect byte order on my system.

• The integer 1749397227 in hexadecimal is 0x6874462B.
• Its correct Little-Endian binary representation should be <<0x2B, 0x46, 0x74, 0x68>>, which is “2B467468” in hex.

However, my system consistently produces <<0xEB, 0xAE, 0x45, 0x68>>, which is “EBAE4568” in hex.

Minimal iex Reproduction:

Please run these lines in your iex session and share the output:

my_int = 1749397227                                                                                                                                                                            
le_bin = <<my_int::unsigned-little-integer-size(32)>>                                                                                                                                          
expected_hex = "2B467468"                                                                                                                                                                      
actual_hex = Base.encode16(le_bin)                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                                                               
IO.puts("--- Bitstring Test ---")                                                                                                                                                              
IO.puts("Integer:    #{my_int}")                                                                                                                                                               
IO.puts("Expected LE: #{expected_hex}")                                                                                                                                                        
IO.puts("Actual LE:   #{actual_hex}")                                                                                                                                                          
IO.puts("Match:       #{actual_hex == expected_hex}")                                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                                                                               
# Also test Erlang's :binary module                                                                                                                                                            
erlang_le_bin = :binary.encode_unsigned(my_int, :little)                                                                                                                                       
erlang_actual_hex = Base.encode16(erlang_le_bin)                                                                                                                                               
IO.puts("\n--- Erlang :binary Test ---")                                                                                                                                                       
IO.puts("Expected LE: #{expected_hex}")                                                                                                                                                        
IO.puts("Actual LE:   #{erlang_actual_hex}")                                                                                                                                                   
IO.puts("Match:       #{erlang_actual_hex == expected_hex}")

My Observed Output (consistently):

— Bitstring Test —
Integer: 1749397227
Expected LE: 2B467468
Actual LE: EBAE4568
Match: false

— Erlang :binary Test —
Expected LE: 2B467468
Actual LE: EBAE4568
Match: false

Troubleshooting Steps Taken (Extensive):

1 Confirmed source code (lib/util/crypto.ex) uses the correct bitstring syntax.
2 Confirmed manual bitwise operations (<<val &&& 0xFF, …>>) do produce the correct “2B467468” when run directly in iex.
3 Performed multiple mix clean --all and rm -rf _build deps priv/repo/migrations.
4 Performed a complete reinstallation of Elixir and Erlang/OTP using asdf (uninstalling, clearing ~/.asdf/downloads and build caches, then reinstalling stable Erlang 27.0 and Elixir
1.18.3-otp-27).
5 Confirmed elixir --version shows the newly installed versions.
6 Ran mix test and direct function calls in iex -S mix after each step.

Despite all this, the issue persists. This suggests a very deep environmental problem.

My System Information:

• elixir --version output: (Paste your actual output here, e.g., Erlang/OTP 27 [erts-15.2.3] … Elixir 1.18.3 (compiled with Erlang/OTP 27))
• Operating System: (e.g., Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)
• CPU Architecture: (e.g., x86_64, ARM64)

Has anyone ever encountered such a fundamental and persistent issue with bitstring encoding in Elixir/Erlang? Any insights or further diagnostic steps would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!