Hexadecimal (hex) is a numeral system consisting of sixteen symbols. The first 10 symbols are taken from the decimal numeral system (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and the last six are taken from the beginning of the English alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F).
The primary and original use of the hexadecimal system is to make binary computer code more human-readable because each hex digital represents a four-digit binary sequence. For example, 1010 in binary is represented in hex with A. This will make more sense when you look at the binary to hex conversion chart below:
| Denary | Binary | Hexadecimal |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0000 | 0 |
| 1 | 0001 | 1 |
| 2 | 0010 | 2 |
| 3 | 0011 | 3 |
| 4 | 0100 | 4 |
| 5 | 0101 | 5 |
| 6 | 0110 | 6 |
| 7 | 0111 | 7 |
| 8 | 1000 | 8 |
| 9 | 1001 | 9 |
| 10 | 1010 | A |
| 11 | 1011 | B |
| 12 | 1100 | C |
| 13 | 1101 | D |
| 14 | 1110 | E |
| 15 | 1111 | F |
Base 16 numerals allow 8-bit binary numbers to be written as just two characters halving the amount of code needed.
Converting Hex to Binary
To convert hex code to binary, use the conversion chart above on each hex character. Here is an example:
A6 B2 = 1010011010110010
