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The size of a byte in platform independent software

When writing platform independent software in C++, can I nowadays safely1 assume that a byte has a size of 8 bits? Or do I have to calculate it like this, for example: #include <climits> std::...
stackprotector's user avatar
-2 votes
1 answer
2k views

Generate large Excel files and response from API

I need to generate a large Excel file (something around 50 megs) and send response to another API which will provide it to the front end for a download option. My question is if it will be better to ...
JackTheKnife's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

Java takes 2 bytes to represent character?

In general a character is represented in 1 byte i.e. 8 bits . This is I believe true for all text editors even for databases like oracle. 1 byte can represent 2^8 = 256 Characters. My question is when ...
user3198603's user avatar
  • 1,896
5 votes
5 answers
2k views

How can the same sequence of bytes might represent an integer, floating-point number, character string, or machine instruction?

I have just started to study about computer systems and I came across this line. How can the difference in the contexts in which we view data objects make this happen? Bytes store numbers, now that ...
Pranjal Kumar's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
674 views

What is the procedure(if any) to select bytes to represent opcodes?

TL;DR What procedure is followed when selecting bytes to represent opcodes? Are byte(s) for opcodes just randomly chosen, and them mapped to mnemonics? I recently learned from this answer that ...
Chris's user avatar
  • 2,840
4 votes
3 answers
3k views

How exactly is bytecode "parsed"?

How is Bytecode "parsed"? It is my understand that Bytecode is a binary, intermediate representation of the syntax of a given programming language. Certain programming languages convert their source ...
Chris's user avatar
  • 2,840
12 votes
6 answers
1k views

Is power-of-two bits per word "convenient"? If it is, why is that?

I find several sources claiming that power-of-two bits in a binary word (such as 8-bits per byte) is a "good thing" or "convenient". I find no source pointing out why. From What is the history of ...
Andreas's user avatar
  • 299
3 votes
5 answers
804 views

Why isn't byte | bit the only built in data type?

All languages I have seen so far have multiple builtin data types (int, double, float, char, long...). But if we look closely, they are just arbitrary arrays of bits, the only difference between them ...
Ford O.'s user avatar
  • 223
4 votes
4 answers
7k views

Byte addressable vs bit addressable

Why are most computers byte addressable instead of bit addressable? By B/b addressable I mean that processor can operate on level of single B/b. Bit addressable advantages: Booleans have size of ...
Ford O.'s user avatar
  • 223
5 votes
1 answer
13k views

What is the difference between size and length? [closed]

It seems that the terms size and length are used interchangeably to describe how many bits, bytes or octets some data occupies, i.e. a length field in a data header is said to indicate the size of the ...
user3998276's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
588 views

read file bytewise and find information

i am a hobby php-dev and have the following problem: i have a rar-file, whose header is damaged, therefor extracting is not fully possible. the contents are non-compressed, and can be read with eg. a ...
benny.utzer's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

Endianness at bit level

I am learning the union and struct and I wrote the code below. What I do not understand is why the output is different when I change from a little endian to a big endian machine. My understanding is ...
user2296949's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

C# Structs, 16 byte rec. - Are getters and setters included in that?

I was reading into the nitty-gritty of structs in C# here: "C Fundamentals, The differences between struct and class." and at the very bottom it mentions keeping a struct below 16 bytes. I ...
Brian Chandler's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is a 'least significant bit' used anywhere practically today?

I'm working on a library that supports file reading, and right now I've always assumed that all the bytes are written in most significant bit first format. Is the least significant bit first format ...
Water's user avatar
  • 366
2 votes
1 answer
31k views

Whats the difference between byte and Byte? [duplicate]

Alright so of course, I know the differences. byte is a primitive and Byte is an object. Byte offers more functions but there is one thing I dont understand. Why would anyone create a variable using ...
Rhys's user avatar
  • 29
7 votes
1 answer
13k views

Benefits of Java ByteArrayInputStream vs byte array?

I have a scenario where my Java process will be receiving a stream of binary data: public class DataHandler { public void handleData(DATA data) { // TODO: Do something with data } } ...
herpylderp's user avatar
  • 2,057
0 votes
2 answers
489 views

Does ASCII have a header or footer or anything similar?

I'm working through a problem in Programming Pearls -- specifically, the implementation of a program which sorts a file containing, at most, 10,000,000 integers, each of which is 7 digits long (Column ...
Drake Sobania's user avatar
12 votes
4 answers
3k views

Is there any danger in writing raw bytes to a file? [closed]

I'm working through a problem in Programming Pearls -- specifically, the implementation of a program which sorts a file containing, at most, 10,000,000 integers (Column 1, Problem 3). Since the book ...
Drake Sobania's user avatar
36 votes
11 answers
16k views

Why do we still use floats? [duplicate]

I understand why floats served a purpose in the past. And I think I can see why they're useful in some simulation examples today. But I think those example are more exceptional than common. So I ...
user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
2k views

8 bit and 1 byte, is this a valid question to be asked?

I saw these question in our school's past paper, and I'm wondering if this is a valid question. How big is bool in C and C++? A) 1 bit B) 4 bit C) 8 bit D) 1 byte What is ...
Shane Hsu's user avatar
  • 188
2 votes
4 answers
14k views

How to get from 1 byte to 2 bytes

We have 1 byte, which is 8 bits, which is 2^8. Now 2 bytes should be 2 * 1 byte, which is 2 * 2^8 = 2^9, but actually 2 bytes is 2^16. What am I missing here? It seems like 2 bytes isn't 2 * 1 byte, ...
dhblah's user avatar
  • 339
1 vote
3 answers
426 views

How do I tell a user that bps means bits per second or bytes per second?

I'm writing an application that deals with the network and the hard drive. For the network portion, the application measures in bits per second, while the disk portion measures in bytes per second. ...
Cole Tobin's user avatar
  • 1,503
12 votes
5 answers
29k views

How do you compress ASCII strings into fewer bytes?

I'm working with an embedded device with a unique protocol that sends messages to other devices and I'm making an application that parses the sent packets. Each packet carries 8 bytes. The protocol is ...
TtT23's user avatar
  • 1,542
7 votes
5 answers
122k views

How many bits' address is required for a computer with n bytes of memory?

How many bits of address is required (for the program counter for example) in a byte-addressed computer with 512 Mbyte RAM? What does the formula look like? How is this connected with the fact that ...
Niklas Rosencrantz's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

Java default Integer value is int

My code looks like this import java.util.Scanner; public class StudentGrades { public static void main(String[] argv) { Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); byte q1 = keyboard....
Chris Okyen's user avatar
42 votes
12 answers
6k views

Is there an alternative to bits?

Is there an alternative to bits as the smallest unit of data? Something that won't be only 0 or 1, but actually hold many possible states in between? Wouldn't it be more natural to store floats like ...
Dokkat's user avatar
  • 567
102 votes
7 answers
83k views

What is the history of why bytes are eight bits?

What were the historical forces at work, the tradeoffs to make, in deciding to use groups of eight bits as the fundamental unit? There were machines, once upon a time, using other word sizes. But ...
DarenW's user avatar
  • 4,453