Uses of Hexadecimal (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE Computer Science)
Revision Note
Written by: Robert Hampton
Reviewed by: James Woodhouse
Uses of Hexadecimal
Why is hexadecimal used?
In Computer Science hexadecimal is often preferred when working with large values
It takes fewer digits to represent a given value in hexadecimal than in binary
1 hexadecimal digit corresponds 4 bits (one nibble) and can represent 16 unique values (0-F)
It is beneficial to use hexadecimal over binary because:
The more bits there are in a binary number, the harder it makes for a human to read
Numbers with more bits are more prone to errors when being copied
Examples of where hexadecimal can be seen:
MAC addresses
Colour codes
URLs
MAC addresses
A typical MAC address consists of 12 hexadecimal digits, equivalent to 48 digits in in binary
AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
10101010:10111011:11001100:11011101:11101110:11111111
Writing down or performing calculations with 48 binary digits makes it very easy to make a mistake
Colour codes
A typical hexadecimal colour code consists of 6 hexadecimal digits, equivalent to 24 digits in binary
#66FF33 (green)
01000010:11111111:00110011
URL's
A URL can only contain standard characters (a-z and A-Z), numbers (0-9) and some special symbols which is enough for basic web browsing
If a URL needs to include a character outside of this set, they are converted into a hexadecimal code
Hexadecimal codes included in a URL are prefixed with a % sign
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