Information in a File

Information in a computer system is represented in binary form. How bits are implemented depends on the medium, however. With magnetic storage media (such as hard disks and tape), bits are encoded using patterns of magnetization. With optical storage media (such as CDs or DVDs), bits are encoded using patterns of light reflections.

Remember the four advantages of binary (from chapter 2):

Simple; easy to build.
Unambiguous signals (hence noise immunity).
Flawless copies can be made.
Anything that can be represented in symbols can be represented with patterns of bits.

The last advantage means that a file can contain any type of information that can be represented with symbols, such as:

numbers (integers and floating point types of any size)
characters (text files)
characters with format information (word processor files)
images
audio
program source files ( MyProgram.java, cprogram.c )
bytecodes ( MyProgram.class )
machine language ( cprogram.exe )
many other types

Answer:

Information in a File

QUESTION 4: