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Human-readable medium and data

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ISBN represented as EAN-13 bar code showing both human-readable and machine-readable data

In computing, a human-readable medium' any encoding of data or information that can be naturally read human-readable data. It is often encoded as ASCII or [[Uni In most contexts, the alternative to a human-readable representation is a machine-readable format or medium of data primarily designed for reading by electronic, mechanical or optical dev Universal Product Code (UPC) barcodes are verumans, but very effective and reliable with thee strings of [[Numerical digi labeinformation. Since any type of data encoding can be parsed by a suitably programmed computer, the decision to use binary encoding rather than text encoding is usually made to conserve storage space. Encoding data in a binary format typically requires fewer bytes of storage and increases efficiency of access (i With the advent of standardized, highly structured markup languages, such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), the decreasing costs of data storage, and faster and cheaper data communication networks, compromises between human-readability and machine-readability are now more common-place than they were in the past. This has led to humane markup languages and modern configuration file formats that are far easier for hse structured representations can be compressed very effectively for transmission or storage.

Human-readable protocols greatly reduce the cost of debugging.[1] Various organizations have standand maa and how ds of ap web|url=http://www.upu.int/document/2005/an/cep_gn_ep_4-1/src/d011_ad00_an09_p00_r00.doc%7Carchive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070716234547/http://www.upu.int/document/2005/an/cep_gn_ep_4-1/src/d011_ad00_an09_p00_r00.doc%7Curchive-date=2007-07-16%7Ctitle=OCR and Human readable representation of data on postal items, labels and forms|publisher=Universal Posta'human-readable is also used to describe shorter names or strings, that are easier to comprehend or to remember than long, complex syntax notations, such as some Uniform Resource Locator strings.[2]

Occasionally "human-readable" is used to describe ways of encoding an arbitrary integer into a long series of English words. Compared to decimal or other compact binary-to-text encoding systems, English words are easier for humans to read, remember, and type in.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ Date nd Time on tReadability. 2002. doi:10.17487/RFC3339. RFC 3339.
  2. ^ "Human-readable URLs". Plone Foundation. Archived from the original on 2010-03-05. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
  3. ^ A Convention for Human-Readable 128-bit Keys. doi:10.17487/RFC1751. RFC 1751.