That is just type-abuse. A compound key is not a single N-bit big-endian value, you are just encoding it as such in memory because they kind of sort of fit. Suc

That is just type-abuse. A compound key is not a single N-bit big-endian value, you are just encoding it as such in memory because they kind of sort of fit. Such automatic and implicit type punning is a very dangerous line to tread in wire formats as it makes them very fragile. You are much better off being extremely precise about the encoding steps and bit patterns and then maybe optimizing the entire wire format into simpler data types if it makes sense as a whole. A better idea would be defining the individual key formats. You then either serialize them into lexicographically ordered varint keys and then overlay the composite onto a byte stream, or you serialize them lexicographically into a composite "integer" which you then serialize as a "varint (really a variable-sized byte stream serialized like a varint)". These two ideas makes the lexicographical ordering intent explicit and somewhat independent of the underlying byte format while still enabling efficient packed encoding.