Variable-length Quantity - General Structure

General Structure

The encoding assumes an octet (an eight-bit byte) where the most significant bit (MSB), also commonly known as the sign bit, is reserved to indicate whether another VLQ octet follows.

VLQ Octet
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
A Bn

If A is 0, then this is the last VLQ octet of the integer. If A is 1, then another VLQ octet follows.

B is a 7-bit number and n is the position of the VLQ octet where B0 is the least significant. The VLQ octets are arranged most significant first in a stream.

Read more about this topic:  Variable-length Quantity

Famous quotes containing the words general and/or structure:

    Surely one of the peculiar habits of circumstances is the way they follow, in their eternal recurrence, a single course. If an event happens once in a life, it may be depended upon to repeat later its general design.
    Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)

    ... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.
    Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)