If digital data is stored in 0s & 1s, how does the reader know how many of the digits to take into consideration?

Question

Must be a very basic and dumb question. But ‘1001’ can be 9 and also 2 & 1 if ’10’ & ’01’ is taken seperately. I’m confused.

In: 49

Answer 1

That problem is not specific to computers. 123 456 can be either one single number or 123 & 456 taken separately. Heck, negro can be dark if you read in Portuguese or black if you read in Spanish. You will know which one is the right one by using context.

In the digital world it’s up to the software to decide what 1001 means, based on context. That’s why if you open a png file with mspaint you see a picture but if you open it with notepad you see gibberish