3 ms·
> By the way, the handy word for an 8-bit byte is “octet” (I have not observed octet used in the software industry, only in school. Don’t use it at work or you
by okl 6y ago
> By the way, the handy word for an 8-bit byte is “octet” (I have not observed octet used in the software industry, only in school. Don’t use it at work or you might come across as an ass...)
I see it used (and use it myself) from time to time in contexts where you want to differentiate between 7/8/9-bit bytes, mostly when working with embedded/low-level software.
- paxswill 6y agoThe place I see it most is in networking RFCs.
- kstrauser 6y agoBeat me to it. "Octet" is used in a lot of networking documentation, and it also nicely decouples wire formats from any meaning the host system might have for the information. From IP's point of view, an octet is literally that: a bag of 8 bits, without meaning. It's not part of a floating point number, or a UTF character, or anything else but just plain undifferentiated data.
- gkop 6y agoThanks. My application layer bias is showing. We will always need octet in the low-level networking domain, huh.