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.
| 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:
“In the drawing room [of the Queen’s palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid’s foot between Venus’s thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied “Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)