A human-readable medium or human-readable format is any encoding of
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...
or
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
that can be naturally
read by
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
s.
In
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...
, ''human-readable'' data is often encoded as
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...
or
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
text, rather than as
binary data. 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 devices, or
computers. For example,
Universal Product Code (UPC)
barcodes are very difficult to read for humans, but very effective and reliable with the proper equipment, whereas the strings of
numerals
A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to:
* Numeral system used in mathematics
* Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English)
* Numerical ...
that commonly accompany the label are the human-readable form of the barcode information. 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
byte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
s of storage and increases efficiency of access (input and output) by eliminating format
parsing or conversion.
With the advent of standardized, highly structured
markup languages, such as
Extensible Markup Language
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both Human-readable med ...
(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 humans to read.
In addition, these structured representations can be
compressed very effectively for transmission or storage.
Human readable protocols greatly reduce the cost of debugging.
Various organizations have standardized the definition of human-readable and machine-readable data and how they are applied in their respective fields of application, e.g., the
Universal Postal Union.
Often the term ''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
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifi ...
strings.
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.
[
RFC 1751
"A Convention for Human-Readable 128-bit Keys"
]
See also
*
Self-documenting code – source code that is both machine-readable and human-readable
*
Human-readable code
*
Machine-Readable Documents
*
Machine-readable data
*
Data (computing)
*
Data conversion
*
Hellschreiber
*
Human–computer interaction
Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people ( users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design ...
*
Human factors
*
Plain text
*
Quoted printable
References
Optical character recognition
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