Unpacked

Unpacked is the past participle of the verb unpack. As an adjective, it is used to describe items that have been removed from packaging or to data that is not in a compact or compressed form. In everyday speech, you might say you unpacked your suitcase after a trip, or you unpack a shipment to reveal its contents.

In computing, the term contrasts with packed data. In numeric representations such as packed decimal and BCD, unpacked forms store one digit per byte (often with a separate sign) rather than two digits per byte. The IBM mainframe term unpacked decimal and the UNPACK operation refer to converting packed decimal values to a more readable or operable unpacked form.

Unpacking also refers to expanding or extracting data from a container or file. In data processing, a decompression or unpack tool expands a compressed archive (ZIP, tar, etc.). In programming languages, unpacking describes splitting a composite value into separate variables, such as tuple or array unpacking, or function argument unpacking (destructuring).

Beyond computing, unpacked can describe luggage that has been emptied, shipments that have had their packaging removed, or anything presented without its packaging.