Encoding Glossary

Browse 8 encoding terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

8 Encoding Terms

Base64: An encoding scheme that represents binary data using 64 ASCII characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /). Used to safely transmit binary data (images, files, keys)...
Bit Field: A compact representation in which multiple boolean flags or small numeric values are packed into specific bits within a larger integer or word. Bit fields are...
Character Set: A defined collection of characters and their encoded representations used in text processing, such as ASCII or Unicode encodings. Character set mismatches can...
Content Encoding: The representation or transformation applied to response content, often indicated in protocols like HTTP to show compression or alternate encodings such as...
EBCDIC: Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code — an 8-bit character encoding created by IBM for mainframes. Predates and is incompatible with ASCII, and still...
Output Encoding: The practice of escaping or encoding data before rendering it in a specific output context such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, or URLs so untrusted input is not...
Unicode: A universal character encoding standard that assigns a unique code point to every character in every writing system -- 154,000+ characters across 168 scripts....
UTF-8: A variable-width character encoding that represents every Unicode code point using one to four bytes, designed to be backward-compatible with ASCII (all valid...