uint8

uint8 is an unsigned integer type that uses 8 bits of memory, capable of representing integers in the range 0 to 255 inclusive. It is commonly described as a single byte, and its storage size is fixed at one byte across most platforms and languages.

Because it is a single byte, endianness does not affect its representation. Endianness matters for multi-byte values, but a uint8 value is identical in memory regardless of the system’s byte order.

In programming languages, the type is implemented under different names. In C and C++, the type is uint8_t and is defined in stdint.h. In Rust, the equivalent is u8; in Go and C#, the type is uint8. Some languages use alternate naming conventions or provide similar types as part of their standard libraries. In JavaScript, there is no native uint8 primitive; instead, the Uint8Array typed array stores 0–255 values in a contiguous buffer for binary data.

Arithmetic with uint8 values is typically modulo 256, meaning additions or multiplications that exceed 255 wrap around (for languages with wrapping unsigned arithmetic). Conversions from larger integer types may truncate to the lower 8 bits. This makes uint8 well-suited for raw binary data, where each value represents a byte, and for encoding schemes where bytes must remain within 0–255.

Common applications include binary I/O, network protocol implementations, image processing (color channels such as red, green, and blue), and storage of small numeric values in compact buffers or arrays. In text data, values 0–127 correspond to ASCII characters, while 128–255 may represent extended character sets depending on encoding.