4
Through the navigation bar, we realize that Google uses hexadecimal values to identify records:
The print above was taken from Gmail, but the same occurs for other services like Google Drive.
6
What is the advantage of using hexadecimal values instead of whole?
Hexadecimal is a slightly shorter representation. For example, the following two values are identical:
999999999 DEX
3B9AC9FF HEX
You also have a better view of the bit distribution, since each hex position is equivalent to 4 bits:
3 B 9 A C 9 F F HEX
0011 1011 1001 1010 1100 1001 1111 1111 BIN
Which column type is appropriate in this case: string (varchar), binary, another
Usually numerical, but can be binary. Hexa is just a representation; it is the case of the GUID type, which SQL Server stores as a varbinary(16).
For an example of this type of conversion, see this response in Stack Overflow (English): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10078209/sql-server-2008-convert-from-guid-to-bigint-and-back
I wish I could give more than one positive vote to that reply.
So basically Google converts from integer to hexa to mount the URL and then hexa to integer to search for the record in the bank?
@Andrey Think of it this way: An integer is just a set of bytes until someone needs a visualization, which can be decimal, hexadeximal or any other (base 2, base 36, etc.) The hexadecimal representation is closer (and less costly [Citation needed]) of native binary format than decimal. In this sense, you are fully correct - the hexa format is a choice to make available in a URL limited to ASCII characters, for example.
I get it, thank you. =)
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Just one observation, Google does not use a relational database, but Bigtable, a database oriented to http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigTable
– abfurlan
See also on Sopt: How hexadecimal numbers work?
– Bacco