Common Uses
The byte is also defined as a data type in certain programming languages. The C and C++ programming languages, for example, define byte as an "addressable unit of data storage large enough to hold any member of the basic character set of the execution environment" (clause 3.6 of the C standard). The C standard requires that the char integral data type is capable of holding at least 256 different values, and is represented by at least 8 bits (clause 5.2.4.2.1). Various implementations of C and C++ reserve 8, 9, 16, 32, or 36 bits for the storage of a byte. The actual number of bits in a particular implementation is documented as CHAR_BIT as implemented in the limits.h file. Java's primitive byte data type is always defined as consisting of 8 bits and being a signed data type, holding values from −128 to 127. The C# programming language, along with other .NET-languages, has both the unsigned byte (named byte) and the signed byte (named sbyte), holding values from 0 to 255 and -128 to 127, respectively.
In data transmission systems a byte is defined as a contiguous sequence of binary bits in a serial data stream, such as in modem or satellite communications, which is the smallest meaningful unit of data. These bytes might include start bits, stop bits, or parity bits, and thus could vary from 7 to 12 bits to contain a single 7-bit ASCII code.
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Famous quotes containing the word common:
“I don’t have any doubts that there will be a place for progressive white people in this country in the future. I think the paranoia common among white people is very unfounded. I have always organized my life so that I could focus on political work. That’s all I want to do, and that’s all that makes me happy.”
—Hettie V., South African white anti-apartheid activist and feminist. As quoted in Lives of Courage, ch. 21, by Diana E. H. Russell (1989)
“There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a hearing of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word. The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)