The file command will attempt to identify a file's content by looking for certain patterns of data. Most often you may decide how to interpret or display the data. Now data is always the same, until you convert it, either directly or implicitly. In python, you can display any data in a 'displayable' format, which is created by repr(value) where value is any variable (or literal?). if you want to see the proper file data without interpretation then use a hex viewer, not a text editor. Characters are nothing more than binary data in a certain range and within that range the text editor will show them as 'text' rather than hex values. If you opened a binary file in notepad then you are likely seeing the program mixing the view of characters in with hexadecimal. It seems you are probably also opening a binary file in a text editor. Hexadecimal is, once you get the hang of it, a much better representation to work with computer data than normal decimal. You might want to read up on how to convert binary, decimal and hexadecimal as it can be useful to know how the numbers we use are merely representations of each other that can be easier to work with depending on your situation. The only difference is in how the number is shown to you as a user. The number is stored in memory using the exact same binary bits, is used in calculations in exactly the same way and gives exactly the same results. The numbers are identical but are shown differently because binary 00001111 is more verbose than hexadecimal 0f (often displayed as x0f, the x denoting 'hex').Īs far as the computer is concerned the value is 00001111, but what is shown to you is more informationally dense and easier to 'think' with because humans are used to thinking in base-10 (decimal). Hexadecimal is a way of representing of numbers using base-16īinary is a way of representing numbers using base-2 (0,1).

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