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Information about Binary File

See also Executable
“Binaries” redirects here. For double stars, see Binary Star.
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A hex dump of the 318 byte Wikipedia favicon, or Image:Wikipedia-favicon.png. The first column numerates the line's starting address, while the * indicates repetition.
A binary file is a computer file which may contain any type of data, encoded in binary form for computer storage and processing purposes; for example, computer document files containing formatted text. Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; binary files that contain only textual data - without, for example, any formatting information - are called plain text files. In many cases, plain text files are considered to be different from binary files because binary files are made up of more than just plain text.

Binary file formats

Binary files are usually thought of as being a sequence of bytes, which means the binary digits (bits) are grouped in eights. Binary files typically contain bytes that are intended to be interpreted as something other than text characters. Compiled computer programs are typical examples; indeed, compiled applications (object files) are sometimes referred to, particularly by programmers, as binaries. But binary files can also contain images, sounds, compressed versions of other files, etc. — in short, any type of file content whatsoever.

Some binary files contain headers, blocks of metadata used by a computer program to interpret the data in the file. For example, a GIF file can contain multiple images, and headers are used to identify and describe each block of image data. If a binary file does not contain any headers, it may be called a flat binary file.

Manipulating binary files

To send binary files through certain systems (such as e-mail) that do not allow all data values, they are often translated into a plain text representation (using, for example, Base64). This encoding has the disadvantage of increasing the file's size by approximately 30% during the transfer, as well as requiring translation back into binary after receipt. See Binary-to-text encoding for more on this subject.

Microsoft Windows allows the programmer to specify a system call parameter indicating if a file is text or binary; Unix does not, and treats all files as binary. This reflects the fact that the distinction between the two types of files is to a certain extent arbitrary.

Viewing binary files

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A view of a small binary file in a Hex editor.
A hex editor or viewer (such as hex dump) may be used to view file data as a sequence of hexadecimal (or decimal, binary or ASCII character) values for corresponding bytes of a binary file.

If a binary file is opened in a text editor, each group of eight bits will typically be translated as a single character, and you will see a (probably unintelligible) display of textual characters. If the file were opened in some other application, that application will have its own use for each byte: maybe the application will treat each byte as a number and output a stream of numbers between 0 and 255 — or maybe interpret the numbers in the bytes as colors and display the corresponding picture. If the file is itself treated as an executable and run, then the computer will attempt to interpret the file as a series of instructions in its machine language.

See also

executable or executable file, in computer science, is a file whose contents are meant to be interpreted as a program by a computer.

While a file in source form may be executable, such a file is usually referred to as a "script.
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binary star is a stellar system consisting of two stars orbiting around their center of mass. For each star, the other is its companion star. Recent research suggests that a large percentage of stars are part of systems with at least two stars.
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computer file is a block of arbitrary information, or resource for storing information, which is available to a computer program and is usually based on some kind of durable storage.
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binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, is a numeral system that represents numeric values using two symbols, usually 0 and 1. More specifically, the usual base-2 system is a positional notation with a radix of 2.
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A document file format is a text or binary file format for storing documents on a storage media, especially for use by computers. There currently exist a multitude of incompatible document file formats. The file format currently used by Microsoft Word (.
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Formatted text, styled text or rich text, as opposed to plain text, has styling information beyond the minimum of semantic elements: colours, styles (boldface, italic), sizes and special features (such as hyperlinks).
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A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a computer file.

Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa.
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text file.]]

A text file is a generic description of a kind of computer file in a computer file system.[1] At this generic level of description, there are two kinds of computer files: 1) text files; and 2) binary files.
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byte (pronounced /baɪt/) is a unit of measurement of information storage, most often consisting of eight bits. In many computer architectures it is a unit of memory addressing.
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BIT is an acronym for:
  • Bannari amman Institute of Technology
  • Bangalore Institute of Technology
  • Beijing Institute of Technology
  • Benzisothiazolinone
  • Bilateral Investment Treaty
  • Bhilai Institute of Technology - Durg

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character is a unit of information that roughly corresponds to a grapheme, grapheme-like unit, or symbol, such as in an alphabet or syllabary in the written form of a natural language.

An example of a character is a letter, numeral, or punctuation mark.
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compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language).
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In computer science, object code, or an object file, is the representation of code that a compiler or assembler generates by processing a source code file. Object files contain compact code, often called "binaries".
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In information technology, Header refers to supplemental data placed at the beginning of a block of data being stored or transmitted, which contain information for the handling of the data block.
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Metadata is data about data. An item of metadata may describe an individual datum, or content item, or a collection of data including multiple content items.

Metadata (sometimes written 'meta data') is used to facilitate the understanding, use and management of data.
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A computer program is one or more instructions that are intended for execution by a computer. Specifically, it is a symbol or combination of symbols forming an algorithm that may or may not terminate, and that algorithm is written in a programming language.
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Graphics Interchange Format

A rotating globe in GIF format. The gradient blue areas of this image transition choppily, a common artifact produced when dithering is not employed.
File extension: .
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E-mail (short for electronic mail; often also abbreviated as e-mail, email or simply mail) is a store and forward method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems.
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Base64 is a positional notation using a base of 64. It is the largest power-of-two base that can be represented using single printable ASCII characters. This has led to its use as a transfer encoding for e-mail among other things.
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A binary-to-text encoding is encoding of data in plain text. More precisely, it is an encoding of binary data in a sequence of ASCII-printable characters. These encodings are necessary for transmission of data when the channel or the protocol only allows ASCII-printable characters,
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Microsoft Windows

Screenshot of Windows Vista Ultimate, the latest version of Microsoft Windows.
Company/developer: Microsoft Corporation
OS family: MS-DOS/9x-based, Windows CE, Windows NT
Source model: Closed source

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In computing, a system call is the mechanism used by an application program to request service from the operating system.

Background

In addition to processing data in its own memory space, an application program might want to use data and services provided by the system.
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Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy.
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A hex editor (or binary file editor or byte editor) is a type of computer program that allows a user to manipulate binary (normally non-plain text) computer files.
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Hex dump is a hexadecimal view (on screen or a printout) of computer memory. Each 8-bit byte is represented as a two-digit hexadecimal number. Hex dumps are commonly organized into rows of 8 or 16 bytes, sometimes separated by whitespaces.
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text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.

Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code.

Plain text files vs.


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executable or executable file, in computer science, is a file whose contents are meant to be interpreted as a program by a computer.

While a file in source form may be executable, such a file is usually referred to as a "script.
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Machine code or machine language is a system of instructions and data directly executed by a computer's central processing unit. Machine code is the lowest-level of abstraction for representing a computer program.
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The legal aspects of technology involve many different terms. This page attempts to provide short and accurate definitions of these terms, as they pertain to technology, with links to more information in Wikipedia.
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