CODEWITHSUNDEEP
binarycomputer-science
Zakareya Alatoli
Zakareya Alatoli

Reputation: 531

Is there such a thing as "non-binary" data?

When you get down to the bare metal, all data is stored in bits, which are binary (1 or 0). However, I sometimes see terms like "binary file" which implies the existence of files that aren't binary. Also, for things like base64 encoding, which Wikipedia describes as a "binary-to-text encoding scheme". But if I'm not mistaken, text is also stored in a binary format on the hardware, so isn't base64 encoding ultimately converting binary to binary? Is there some other definition of "binary" I am unaware of?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1489

Answers (1)

Frank Yellin
Frank Yellin

Reputation: 11330

You are right that deep down, everything is a binary file. However at its base, a binary file is intended to be read as an array of bytes, where each byte has a value between 0 and 255. A text file is intended to be read as an array of characters.

When, in Python, I open a file with open("myfile", "r"), I am telling it that I expect the underlying file to contain characters, and that Python just do the necessary processing to give me characters. It may convert multiple bytes into a single characters. It may canonicalize all possible newline combinations into just a single newline character. Some characters have multiple byte representations, but all will give me the same character.

When I open a file with open("myfile", "rb"), I literally want the file read byte by byte, with no interpretation of what it is seeing.

Upvotes: 1

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