Data And Program Representation
Douglas E. Comer · 2024
The previous chapter describes the transformation of a high-level programming language into a low-level, binary form that allows efficient computation by the underlying hardware. In particular, to allow the hardware to perform calculations and storage at high speed, all data items must be stored in binary. This chapter examines the binary representations that computers use for data, including integers, characters, and floating point values. We will see that representing data in binary has consequences for software engineers.