0xF6

0xF6 is a hexadecimal notation representing the decimal value 246. In binary it is written as 11110110, and it occupies one byte in most computer architectures. The value is commonly encountered in programming, data representation, and communication protocols where hexadecimal literals are preferred for their compactness and alignment with byte boundaries.

In character encoding, 0xF6 corresponds to the Latin small letter “ö” (o with diaeresis) in several extended ASCII sets, including ISO‑8859‑1 (Latin‑1), Windows‑1252, and the Unicode standard (U+00F6). This character is used in languages such as German, Swedish, and Finnish, where it signifies a distinct vowel sound. In Unicode, 0xF6 is the low‑order byte of the UTF‑8 encoding for “ö”, which appears as the two‑byte sequence 0xC3 0xB6.

Hexadecimal literals like 0xF6 are also employed in low‑level programming and hardware description. For example, in assembly language for x86 processors, the byte value 0xF6 can serve as an opcode prefix for certain arithmetic and logical operations, such as the “test” and “div” instructions when combined with specific ModR/M bytes. In microcontroller firmware, setting a register to 0xF6 may configure particular peripheral features, depending on the hardware specification.

In networking and file formats, 0xF6 may appear as a marker or flag byte. Certain binary protocols define 0xF6 as a command identifier or status code, and its interpretation is context‑dependent. Additionally, in color representation, the hexadecimal pair “F6” is sometimes used to denote the green component of an RGB value, contributing to light‑green shades when combined with other channel values.

Overall, 0xF6 is a versatile byte value whose meaning varies across different technical domains, ranging from textual characters to machine instructions and data signaling.