Octet String: What is it?

Question

I am starting to look into some network programming concepts for a project I am about to take over, and I keep running into this concept of an octet string. Can anyone out there provide some feedback into what this is, and how it relates to network programming?

Answer 1

Octet = byte.

Octet string = sequence of bytes.

Also, see Wikipedia.

Answer 2

"Octet" is standardeze for "8-bit byte". It's supposed to be less ambiguous term compared to just "byte", because some platforms have bytes of different width (not sure if there are any still remaining, but they used to exist).

Answer 3

A group of 8 bits in a computer is called an octet. A byte is the same for most practical purposes, but does not equal 8 bits on all computer architectures. More can be found here .. Link