Binary-to-text encoding: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:28, 27 March 2007

Revision as of 19:13, 6 April 2007

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Some other encodings (base64, uuencoding) are based on mapping all possible sequences of six [[bit]]s into different printable characters. Since there are more than <math>2^6=64</math> printable characters, this is possible. A given sequence of bytes is translated by viewing it as stream of bits, breaking this stream in chunks of six bits and generating the sequence of corresponding characters. The different encodings differ in the mapping between sequences of bits and characters and in how the resulting text is formatted. Some encodings (the original version of BinHex) use four bits instead of six. This leads to a 50% longer output but simplifies the procedure of encoding, as the byte boundaries in the source data and the character boundaries in the output only line up every second output character instead of every third (errata: I think should not be 'third' but 'forth'. 3 input bytes = 24 bits = 24/6 output characters = 4 output bytes).

==See also==

* [[Binary and text files]]

[[Category:Binary to text encoding formats|*]]