When I open program files in windows some of them are almost nothing but boxes and triangles. I was always curious what the hell it was.


Thanks / Reputation (whatever) in advance!

You mean when you open binary files in Notepad?

It's dividing the file into 8-bit chunks and treating each 8 bit chunk as an index into the ASCII table. Say, it reads 8 bits from the file and gets "11011011". This is 219 in decimal. ASCII character #219 is a box, so that's what it displays. It then reads the next 8 bits and gets another number from 0 to 255. It then displays the character corresponding to that number.

This is the chart. As you can see, there are 256 characters, some of which are boxes and some of which are triangles.
http://www.plcdev.com/ascii_chart

Obviously, the "code" that ends up getting displayed doesn't mean anything.

1 members found this post helpful.

You must know how when the file does not have an extension for it on windows and It asks if you want it to find out what kind of file it is from the internet. I have Never had it work. I say "Note Pad for everything"! I tried to add to your reputation but it would not allow me so this will have to suffice. "You cannot give Reputation to the same post twice." I could not do it even once.Thanks again!

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