Editing Hexadecimal (section)

{{Short description|Base-16 numerical system}}
{{Redirect-multi|3|Sexadecimal|Hex digit|Hex format|base 60|Sexagesimal|binary-coded hexadecimals|Nibble|hexadecimal file formats|Hex file (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020|cs1-dates=y}}
{{Numeral systems}}
'''Hexadecimal''' (also known as '''base-16''' or simply '''hex''') is a [[Numeral system#Positional systems in detail|positional numeral system]] that represents numbers using a [[radix]] (base) of sixteen. Unlike the [[decimal]] system representing numbers using ten symbols, hexadecimal uses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols "0"–"9" to represent values 0 to 9 and "A"–"F" to represent values from ten to fifteen.

Software developers and system designers widely use hexadecimal numbers because they provide a convenient representation of [[binary code|binary-coded]] values. Each hexadecimal digit represents four [[bit]]s (binary digits), also known as a [[nibble]] (or nybble).<ref>{{Cite news |title=The hexadecimal system |url=https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/know-how/hexadecimal-system/ |access-date=2022-08-26 |newspaper=Ionos Digital Guide |language=en |archive-date=2022-08-26  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220826084201/https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/know-how/hexadecimal-system/ |url-status=live }}</ref> For example, an 8-bit [[byte]] is two hexadecimal digits and its value can be written as {{mono|00}} to {{mono|FF}} in hexadecimal.

In mathematics, a subscript is typically used to specify the base. For example, the decimal value {{val|711|fmt=commas}} would be expressed in hexadecimal as {{hexadecimal|711}}. In programming, several notations denote hexadecimal numbers, usually involving a prefix. The prefix <code>0x</code> is used in [[C (programming language)|C]], which would denote this value as <code>0x{{hexadecimal|711|no}}</code>.

Hexadecimal is used in the transfer encoding '''Base 16''', in which each byte of the [[plaintext|plain text]] is broken into two 4-bit values and represented by two hexadecimal digits.