Byteweise

Byte-wise processing is a term used in computing to describe processing data in units of one byte (eight bits). Byte-wise operations handle streams, buffers, and data structures a byte at a time, in contrast to bitwise processing, which operates on individual bits.

In programming, byte-wise handling is common when dealing with binary formats, character encodings, or network protocols, where data is naturally organized as bytes. It supports straightforward parsing, endianness considerations, and easier interoperability. Implementations often use byte arrays or buffers; in languages like C, pointers to unsigned char are used, while higher-level languages provide byte arrays or byte buffers.

Advantages include simplicity, portability, and compatibility with most binary I/O. Limitations include potential inefficiency for algorithms that could operate on larger word sizes or on parallelizable data; modern CPUs and SIMD may process multiple bytes or larger blocks more efficiently, which can reduce the perceived advantage of strict byte-wise processing.

Related concepts are bitwise processing, byte order (endianness), and block processing, including word-wise or block-wise processing used in cryptography and compression. In data specification, many formats define byte-aligned fields, making byte-wise parsing a natural approach.