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  4. What is a 'byte'?

What is a 'byte'?

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  • U User 1990498

    Does that means I am actually shrinking the size of the data?

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    Nish Nishant
    wrote on last edited by
    #6

    sclh wrote: Does that means I am actually shrinking the size of the data? Nope. When you have an 8-bit binary number - that's a byte. Exmaples of bytes are 10010010, 10001000, 11111111, 0 (00000000), 10000001 etc. The decimal equivalent of the largest unsigned byte is 255. So if you have a byte variable, it can represent any of 256 values (0 included).

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    • N Nish Nishant

      sclh wrote: Does that means I am actually shrinking the size of the data? Nope. When you have an 8-bit binary number - that's a byte. Exmaples of bytes are 10010010, 10001000, 11111111, 0 (00000000), 10000001 etc. The decimal equivalent of the largest unsigned byte is 255. So if you have a byte variable, it can represent any of 256 values (0 included).

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      User 1990498
      wrote on last edited by
      #7

      Ok, thank you for the info. Perhaps I will go and read up and find out my problem then I will consult help again.Thanks.

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      • U User 1990498

        Hi, can someone tell me what is a byte? how many bits does 1 byte equals to?

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        V 0
        wrote on last edited by
        #8

        the word byte comes from By Eight. Meaning they took eight bits together :-) No hurries, no worries.

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        • V V 0

          the word byte comes from By Eight. Meaning they took eight bits together :-) No hurries, no worries.

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          markkuk
          wrote on last edited by
          #9

          No, it comes from the word "bite", but with changed spelling. Originally bytes could be 1-6 bits in length. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte[^] http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/byte.html[^]

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          • M markkuk

            No, it comes from the word "bite", but with changed spelling. Originally bytes could be 1-6 bits in length. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte[^] http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/byte.html[^]

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            V 0
            wrote on last edited by
            #10

            ok I stand corrected. No hurries, no worries.

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            • C Cedric Moonen

              A byte is equal to 8 bits. It has the same size as a character.

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              David Crow
              wrote on last edited by
              #11

              cedric moonen wrote: A byte is equal to 8 bits. Only for UTF-8. You could also have UTF-16 which would be a 16-bit byte (e.g., Unicode).


              "Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who put them into action are priceless." - Unknown

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              • V V 0

                ok I stand corrected. No hurries, no worries.

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                NormDroid
                wrote on last edited by
                #12

                you almost had me convinced ;P Blogless

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                • D David Crow

                  cedric moonen wrote: A byte is equal to 8 bits. Only for UTF-8. You could also have UTF-16 which would be a 16-bit byte (e.g., Unicode).


                  "Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who put them into action are priceless." - Unknown

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                  Ravi Bhavnani
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #13

                  AFAIK, a byte is always 8-bits. [edit] I just saw the reference to the article that said there used to be 6-bit bytes, but today's byte is 8-bits in length. [/edit] I believe UTF-16 uses a 16-bit (i.e. 2 byte) "word". Hence, MBCS, DBCS, etc. refer to multi-byte, double-byte..., etc. /ravi My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | Freeware | Music ravib@ravib.com

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                  • R Ravi Bhavnani

                    AFAIK, a byte is always 8-bits. [edit] I just saw the reference to the article that said there used to be 6-bit bytes, but today's byte is 8-bits in length. [/edit] I believe UTF-16 uses a 16-bit (i.e. 2 byte) "word". Hence, MBCS, DBCS, etc. refer to multi-byte, double-byte..., etc. /ravi My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | Freeware | Music ravib@ravib.com

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                    David Crow
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #14

                    Fair enough. I rarely deal with such things, so I was just mainly throwing it out on the table for further discussion.


                    "Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who put them into action are priceless." - Unknown

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                    • N NormDroid

                      you almost had me convinced ;P Blogless

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                      Blake Miller
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #15

                      And here I thought is was a contraction from the Old English - 'Byte Me!'

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                      • U User 1990498

                        Ok. Thanks. Is it possible to compress 8bits into a byte using RLC( Run-Length Coding)?

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                        John M Drescher
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #16

                        No, to compress with rle you need at minimum 4 bytes (32 bits). I assume you read the article at http://www.arturocampos.com/ac_rle.html[^] about RLE. I also believe it explains rle compression pretty well. Do you have any specific questions about the article or rle? Is your problem homework or for some other purpose? I ask this because rle is definitly not the best algorithm to use. And there are several source code compression libraries that you can download and use for free. John

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