Meaning – The term octal, refers to a selection, choice, or condition that has eight possible different values or states.
Octal, also known as “base-8,” is a number system that uses eight digits (0 – 7) to represent any integer. Octal values are sometimes used to represent data in computer science since bytes contain eight bits.
To convert an octal value to a standard decimal or “denary” value, multiply each digit by 8^n, where n is the place of the digit, starting with 0, from right to left. Then add the results together.
To convert a binary value to an octal value, separate the digits into groups of three, starting from right to left. Then multiply each 1 or 0 by 2^n, where n is the place of each digit, from right to left, starting with 0.
Example of usage – “The octal value “10” can represent 8 bits or 1 byte. “20” represents 2 bytes, 30 represents 3, and so on. Octal values are also easily translatable from binary, which uses two digits, and hexadecimal, which uses 16 digits.”
