Introduction to Data and Encoding

Peter Bubestinger-Steindl
(peter @ ArkThis.com)

November 2022

What do you think

happens when you open a file?

How do you think

a program/machine identifies a file?

How do YOU usually

identify a file?

What is there to identify?

What is a digital file?

Wikipedia: Filename extension

What kind of files exist?

  • documents?
  • images?
  • executables?
  • …?
  • anything else?

Understanding digital objects

  • Bit:
    A single binary digit (0/1)
  • Byte:
    A unit: 8 bits (half = Nibble)
  • File:
    Stored segment or block of information available to a computer program
  • File system:
    A mechanism for controlling and organizing bytes into structure (files/folders) for storage and retrieval
  • File Format:
    A standard way that information is encoded in a computer file.

Identifying files

Directory listing example

The Filesystem

  • Filename
  • Date/time
  • Filesize
  • File extension
  • Path
  • Access rights

What is Data?

The 2 major types of Data

  1. Text:
    Literally “just” text characters.

  2. Binary:
    Data for machines/programs.
    Not intended to be viewed directly by humans.

btw: Most “text documents” (docx, odt, pdf) are not text. They are binary data.

Everything’s a number

ASCII Table

Character encoding tables

See: Character sets, encodings, and Unicode (By Nick Gammon)

Unicode

“Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world’s writing systems.” – Wikipedia: Unicode

Mixing languages

Лорем ипсум долор сит амет
側経意責家方家閉討店暖育田庁載社
पढाए हिंदी रहारुप अनुवाद कार्यलय
국민경제의 발전을 위한 중요정책의
旅ロ京青利セムレ弱改フヨス
غينيا واستمر العصبة ضرب قد. وباءت

See: UTF-8 encoding table

Unicode Symbols

  • U+1F973 🥳
  • U+262F ☯
  • U+1F643 🙃
  • U+1F9A0 🦠

See: Emoji List, Emojipedia

Comments?

Questions?