358:, each group of eight bits will typically be translated as a single character, and the user will see a (probably unintelligible) display of textual characters. If the file is opened in some other application, that application will have its own use for each byte: maybe the application will treat each byte as a number and output a stream of numbers between 0 and 255—or maybe interpret the numbers in the bytes as colors and display the corresponding picture. Other type of viewers (called 'word extractors') simply replace the unprintable characters with spaces revealing only the human-readable text. This type of view is useful for a quick inspection of a binary file in order to find passwords in games, find hidden text in non-text files and recover corrupted documents. It can even be used to inspect suspicious files (software) for unwanted effects. For example, the user would see any URL/email to which the suspected software may attempt to connect in order to upload unapproved data (to steal). If the file is itself treated as an
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307:). Encoding the data has the disadvantage of increasing the file size during the transfer (for example, using Base64 will increase the file's size by approximately 30%), as well as requiring translation back into binary after receipt. The increased size may be countered by lower-level link compression, as the resulting text data will have about as much less
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A text file may consist partly or entirely of encoded binary information. When sending binary files over the network they may be encoded so that they use only printable characters. This is often necessary due to the limitations of network protocols used for internet browsing and e-mail communication.
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programming languages allow the programmer to specify a parameter indicating if a file is expected to be plain text or binary when opening a file; this affects the standard library calls to read and write from the file in that the system converts between the C/C++ "end of line" character (the ASCII
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Standards are very important to binary files. For example, a binary file interpreted by the ASCII character set will result in text being displayed. A custom application can interpret the file differently: a byte may be a sound, or a pixel, or even an entire word. Binary itself is meaningless,
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systems, the C and C++ standard libraries on those systems also allow the programmer to specify whether a file is expected to be text or binary, but the libraries can and do ignore that parameter, as the end-of-line sequence in Unix-like systems is just the C/C++ end-of-line character.
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until such time as an executed algorithm defines what should be done with each bit, byte, word or block. Thus, just examining the binary and attempting to match it against known formats can lead to the wrong conclusion as to what it actually represents. This fact can be used in
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that are binary compatible, which means that a file produced in a
Windows environment is interchangeable with a file produced on a Macintosh. This avoids many of the conversion problems caused by importing and exporting data.
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The term is used most commonly to state that data files produced by one application are exactly the same as data files produced by another application. For example, some software companies produce applications for
379:, where an algorithm interprets a binary data file differently to reveal hidden content. Without the algorithm, it is impossible to tell that hidden content exists.
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file can contain multiple images, and headers are used to identify and describe each block of image data. The leading bytes of the header would contain text like
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Two files that are binary compatible will have the same sequence of zeros and ones in the data portion of the file. The file header, however, may be different.
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or viewer may be used to view file data as a sequence of hexadecimal (or decimal, binary or ASCII character) values for corresponding bytes of a binary file.
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as it has increased size, so the actual data transferred in this scenario would likely be very close to the size of the original binary data. See
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computer programs are typical examples; indeed, compiled applications are sometimes referred to, particularly by programmers, as
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files, contain the text of the document but also contain formatting information in binary form.
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linefeed character) and the end-of-line sequence
Windows expects in files (the ASCII
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of the computer. Some computers store the bytes in a file in a different order.
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One possible binary compatibility issue between different computers is the
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file. If a binary file does not contain any headers, it may be called a
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468:"Binary file definition by The Linux Information Project (LINFO)"
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contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some
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to interpret the data in the file. The header often contains a
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Binary files are usually thought of as being a sequence of
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Non-human-readable computer file encoded in binary form
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To send binary files through certain systems (such as
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30:"binaries" redirects here. For double stars, see
255:which can identify the format. For example, a
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334:and linefeed characters in sequence). In
134:Learn how and when to remove this message
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354:If a binary file is opened in a
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59:needs additional citations for
756:Hidden file / Hidden directory
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799:Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
558:The dictionary definition of
202:older Microsoft Word document
933:Comparison of file managers
732:List of filename extensions
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523:"NCL: Reading binary data"
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315:for more on this subject.
235:Some binary files contain
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940:File system fragmentation
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499:"Ascii vs. Binary Files"
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172:indicates repetition.
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809:Semantic file system
632:List of file formats
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383:Binary compatibility
289:website certificates
68:improve this article
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431:Binary large object
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57:This article
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18:Binary format
955:File sharing
928:File manager
918:File copying
765:Organisation
710:8.3 filename
664:Sidecar file
642:Magic number
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535:. Retrieved
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436:Disassembler
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66:Please help
61:verification
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794:File system
679:System file
669:Sparse file
627:File format
613:Binary file
389:binary code
356:text editor
196:containing
178:binary file
154:of the 318
32:Binary star
901:Management
826:Operations
777:NTFS links
698:Properties
537:2017-10-12
508:2017-10-12
477:2017-10-12
452:References
441:Executable
419:endianness
360:executable
349:hex editor
243:used by a
222:characters
200:, such as
124:April 2013
94:newspapers
39:Disk image
870:Hard link
751:File size
674:Swap file
622:Data file
617:text file
411:Macintosh
336:Unix-like
287:(such as
208:Structure
186:text file
982:Category
875:Shortcut
705:Filename
659:Metafile
561:binaries
425:See also
409:and the
241:metadata
230:binaries
226:Compiled
152:hex dump
858:Linking
407:Windows
343:Viewing
309:entropy
237:headers
160:favicon
108:scholar
908:Backup
885:Shadow
305:Base64
281:Base64
265:GIF89a
261:GIF87a
253:number
110:
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89:
81:
880:Alias
849:Write
839:Close
606:Types
301:email
251:magic
214:bytes
180:is a
162:, or
115:JSTOR
101:books
844:Read
834:Open
816:Path
387:For
325:and
218:bits
156:byte
87:news
327:C++
269:GIF
263:or
257:GIF
70:by
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