Bit, byte, and some other things about binary files

So here are some basics about the binary format in data computing and transferring.

Bit is the smallest unit, representing 0 or 1.
Seems like the smallest data storing unit is 1 byte, which is 8 bit. There are 8 slots for 0 or 1 in a byte. It can store 2^8 = 256 different integer numbers (for unsigned integer, it’s 0 to 255)
Sometimes we need more binary slots for higher data precision. Then we have 16bit short, 32bit float, etc. 32 bit float stores data like this: sAAAAAAA BBBBBBBB BBBBBBBB BBBBBBBB where s = sign bit, encoded as 0 => positive, 1 => negative A = 7-bit binary integer, the characteristic B = 24-bit binary integer, the mantissa.
Beware of the writing and reading orders, i.e. Big or Little-Endian when reading and writing data. Different CPU follows different orders to read and write these binary data. If a float file is written by Big-Endian cpu (like IBM or something) but read by Little-Endian cpu (like Intel) you will easily get things screwed up.
There’s a very nice website to help you understand the binary file basics.