Overhead (engineering)

<h2 id="example">Example</h2>
<p>An example from <a href="/facts/Software_engineering/KX6cE9kz">software engineering</a> is the <a href="/facts/Encoding/CSntvnEo">encoding</a> of information and data. The date and time <i>"2011-07-12 07:18:47"</i> can be expressed as <a href="/facts/Unix_time/d8Et1sa2">Unix time</a> with the 32-bit <a href="/facts/Signedness/6vTRuxPk">signed</a> <a href="/facts/Integer/PUwwrawx">integer</a> 1310447927, consuming only 4 <a href="/facts/Byte/BNHUp9Qq">bytes</a>. Represented as <a href="/facts/ISO_8601/4N8kykG9">ISO 8601</a> formatted <a href="/facts/UTF-8/xlaVHSyf">UTF-8</a> encoded <a href="/facts/String_literal/Fj41vtVm">string</a> 2011-07-12 07:18:47 the date would consume 19 bytes, a size overhead of 375% over the binary integer representation. As <a href="/facts/XML/clNgUfWk">XML</a> this date can be written as follows with an overhead of 218 characters, while adding the semantic context that it is a CHANGEDATE with index 1.
</p>
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <DATETIME qualifier="CHANGEDATE" index="1">
     <YEAR>2011</YEAR>
     <MONTH>07</MONTH>
     <DAY>12</DAY>
     <HOUR>07</HOUR>
     <MINUTE>18</MINUTE>
     <SECOND>47</SECOND>
 </DATETIME>

<p>The 349 bytes resulting from the UTF-8 encoded XML correspond to a size overhead of 8725% over the original integer representation.
</p>
<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Overhead_(business)/KodqdRBp">Overhead (business)</a></li></ul>

Overhead (engineering) open-in-new

Overhead (engineering)