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Postings from March 2007
Marc Lehmann skribis 2007-03-31 3:05 (+0200):
> Oh, maybe I know the reason for the confusion.
> I do talk about the *Perl* level, while you often talk about the
> *implementation*. When I say byte or octet string below, I mean on the
> Perl level.
This is not the reason for confusion, because I also discuss the Perl
level. For my terminology, I use whatever is common in the Perl
reference documentation.
> For example, on the Perl level, upgrading a string does not
> change its semantics anywhere except w.r.t. to bugs and unpack: It still
> stays an octet string if it was an octet string before.
s/octet string/character string/ and you're entirely right. "Octets" are
a bit harder, because of the definition of an octet:
octet
<jargon, networking> Eight bits. This term is used in
networking, in preference to byte, because some systems use the
term "byte" for things that are not 8 bits long.
There's no easy way to fit numbers greater than 255 into 8 bits without
sacrificing support for 0 thru 255 inclusive. It may even be impossible.
Who knows. The person who invents a way of storing more than 255
distinct numbers in unique single octets, will probably get famous very
quickly :)
--
korajn salutojn,
juerd waalboer: perl hacker <juerd@juerd.nl> <http://juerd.nl/sig>
convolution: ict solutions and consultancy <sales@convolution.nl>
Ik vertrouw stemcomputers niet.
Zie <http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/>.
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