Converting bits in hexadecimal to bytes

Question

I am trying to understand

256 bits in hexadecimal is 32 bytes, or 64 characters in the range 0-9 or A-F

How can a 32 bytes string be 64 characters in the range 0-9 or A-F?

What does 32 bytes mean?

I would assume that bits mean a digit 0 or 1, so 256 bits would be 256 digits of either 0 or 1.

I know that 1 byte equals 8 bits, so is 32 bytes a 32 digits of either 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 (i.e. 8 different values)?

I do know a little about different bases (e.g. that binary has 0 and 1, decimal has 0-9, hexadecimal has 0-9 and A-F, etc.), but I still fail to understand why 256 bits in hexadecimal can be 32 bytes or 64 characters.

I know it's quite basic in computer science, so I have to read up on this, but can you give a brief explanation?

user3344003 · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-21 17:50:40Z

5

A single hexadecimal character represents 4 bits.

Two hexadecimal characters can represent a byte (8 bits).

How can a 32 bytes string be 64 characters in the range 0-9 or A-F?

Keep in mind that the hexadecimal representation is an EXTERNAL depiction of the bit settings. If byte contains 01001010, was can say that it 4A in hex. The characters 4A are not stored in the byte. It's like in mathematics where we use the depictions "e" and "π" to represent numbers.

What does 32 bytes mean?

1 Byte = 8 bits. 32 bytes = 256 bits.

answered Nov 21, 2017 at 17:50

user3344003

21.9k3 gold badges29 silver badges68 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Converting bits in hexadecimal to bytes

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related