octet

Definition: An octet represents any eight-bit quantity. By definition, octets range in mathematical value from 0 (zero) to 255.

Typically in computer networking, an octet is the same as a byte. However, the term "octet" came into existence because historically some computer systems did not represent a byte as eight bits; octets and bytes are *not* the same on such systems.

Octets most commonly refers to any of the four bytes of an IPv4 address. In dotted-decimal notation, an IP address appears as follows -

[ octet ] . [ octet ] . [ octet ] . [ octet ]

like this:

192 . 168 . 0. 1

In Web browsers, the MIME type "application/octet-stream" refers to a generic HTTP byte stream.

Also Known As: byte