Data Representation and Data Processing

Data Representation refers to the methods used internally to represent information stored in a computer. Computers store lots of different types of information i.e., numbers. text.

Data Representation

What's the Big Picture?

Computers are machines that do stuff with information. They let you view, listen, create, and edit information in documents, images, videos, sound, spreadsheets and databases. They let you play games in simulated worlds that don’t really exist except as information inside the computer’s memory and displayed on the screen. They let you compute and calculate with numerical information; they let you send and receive information over networks. Fundamental to all of this is that the computer has to represent that information in some way inside the computer’s memory, as well as storing it on disk or sending it over a network.

Goal of Computer Data Presentation

To make computers easier to build and keep them reliable, everything is represented using just two values. You may have seen these two values represented as 0 and 1, but on a computer they are represented by anything that can be in two states. For example, in memory a high or low voltage is used to store each 0 or 1.

Data Processing

"Data Processing is the carrying out of operations on data, especially by a computer, to retrieve, transform, or classify information."

OR

"Data processing is simply the conversion of raw data to meaningful information through a process. "

Data is manipulated to produce results that lead to a resolution of a problem or improvement of an existing situation. Similar to a production process, it follows a cycle where inputs (raw data) are fed to a process (computer systems, software, etc.) to produce output (information and insights).