What are binaries?

Question

I see very often people using term binaries in different context. What are binaries? Collection on binary files, installation files, .dll files or what? Or is it just an general term for some collection of files on disk?

It's a really badly chosen term to distinguish human and computer readable files. It's confusing since all files are technically stored in binary. — JohnFx, Nov 23 '11 at 14:16

score 43 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 23 '11 at 07:17

43

Binary means composed of two pieces or two parts and may refer to different things in different worlds of Mathematical, Computing, Science and Others.

But, in Computing, Binary refers to :-

Binary file, composed of something other than human-readable text
Executable, a type of binary file that contains machine code for the computer to execute
Binary code, the digital representation of text and data

answered Nov 23 '11 at 07:17

Pankaj Upadhyay

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Nice distinctions. – Jesse Black Nov 23 '11 at 07:19
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I would add that when referring to *executable* type binary files, developers normally (well, me, anyway) include dynamic libraries, as these also "contains machine code for the computer to execute". (That is, if I *say* "binaries", and *mean* "executable", then I mean all files that contain machine code for execution, not just "real" executables.) – Martin Ba Nov 23 '11 at 09:30
This answer is not correct - the question was specifically about 'binaries'. – fabspro Aug 03 '22 at 08:38

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 23 '11 at 07:05

The word binaries is used as a set of files which are produced after compiling essentially the object code that runs on machines. (and virtual machines/runtimes in case of Java/.NET)

While there are other things like JPEG photo, MPEG video, Zip files etc. are also binary in the sense they are not text or ascii files, but word binaries (used in context of software development) doesn't include them.

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 23 '11 at 07:18

In the linux/unix world, developers and geeks prefer source code to executable binaries so they can compile and tweak them themselves.

When an app is free that is awesome. If it is distributed as binary, that is still awesome. When it is distributed as source that is really awesome.

What are binaries?

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