All operations

Binary

Eight bits per byte, written out.

What it does

Each byte becomes eight ones and zeros. It is the most verbose way to look at data and occasionally the only useful one, because it is the only view where individual bits are visible.

When you actually need it

Most of the time hexadecimal is the better choice: it is a quarter of the length and just as precise. Binary earns its place when the bits themselves matter.

  • Working out what a bitmask or a flags field is doing
  • Understanding what an XOR, shift or AND did to a value
  • Protocol fields that are not byte-aligned
  • Puzzles that present data as bits

Hexadecimal shows the same bytes far more compactly. Bitwise operations become much easier to follow with a binary view either side of them.