Why don’t files show your bits?

Question

For example, I open a file .exe with the notepad and see instead of 100101 I see a lot of strange characters why this? What characters are those?

A file .txt is also binary?

How can I see the bits of a file and maybe edit them? If I edit a . exe correctly can I program in binary? Even if it is difficult.

Answer 1

I open a file .exe with the notepad and see instead of 100101 I see a lot of strange characters why that? What characters are those?

Because the notepad wanted to show like this. What you see is just a graphic representation (in a broad sense) of information. Each software shows the way she thinks best for the person. And the person who goes to see chooses the software that is most suitable for them to be in the way they want. Opening an executable in a notepad is not usually a very good idea, even if it works.

The notepad was made to show texts, so it takes what it has in the file and tries to show as best as if it were a text according to the extended ASCII table.

I answered about that.

A file .txt is also binary?

Probably not, but I can’t guarantee, the file extension doesn’t guarantee what’s inside it. In general this is a case that has more limited characters and makes more sense to a human. Of course it is binary in the sense that every file is formed by bits, but at another level of abstraction classification as binary only files that have more than human-readable texts.

How can I see bits of a file and maybe edit them?

You cannot see the bits as it is in the computer because it is only electrical or magnetic energy (to name the most common types, it is possible to have other forms). You see the energy somewhere?

You can see a representation of what they are. You have to take a software that shows the data of a bit-by-bit file in an abstract way that you can understand.

Examples:

• Visual Studo has a.
• Binary View.
• Hxd.
• Free Hex Editor.
• Hexed).

I’m not recommending any of them, I don’t know the quality or problem of any.

If you edit one correctly .exe I can program in binary?

Yes, but the last one who did it ended up in a mental institution. Q:D

Answer 2

From 8 bits to 8 bits form a byte, each byte in extended ASCII encoding is shown as a character (or in some other encoding; the number of bits representing the character may vary).

Or trying to explain it better:

The notebook was designed to handle text. Text on the computer is displayed by taking bits in groups of 7, 8 or more and displaying a character instead, this character is defined in a table, for example a ascii table, if this encoding was used.

Files . txt are also saved as bits.

To see the bits you need a hexadecimal editor (Hex editor) and know how to handle numbers on hexadecimal basis (i.e., base 16). Or find a binary editor, but as the 8-bit groups are easy to see in base 8 (octal) or 16 the hexadecimal editors do well.

The basis that we learned in school is base 10, the 16 is similar only with the addition of the letters A (10), B (11), C (12), D (13), E (14) and F (15). Operations sum, subtraction etc. also have specific way of doing.

Do not edit a . exe in a text editor because it truncates and corrupts the original file when it is loaded and saved over it.

You can play in a hex editor to stir in a few bytes that you know what are, for example small texts mixed to code, or then edit a binary file (for example one that stores your save state of a computer game) and fiddle with the number of points, powers, etc.

If you know your character has 138 life points, you go to the Hex editor and find where the 8A value is (which is 138 in hexadecimal, you can see this in the Windows calculator in programmer mode) and change it to FF. Changed at the right place, your character gets 255 life points :D

There are programs that help do that.