Erlang - Binaries

Use a data structure called a binary to store large quantities of raw data. Binaries store data in a much more space efficient manner than in lists or tuples, and the runtime system is optimized for the efficient input and output of binaries.

Binaries are written and printed as sequences of integers or strings, enclosed in double less than and greater than brackets.

Following is an example of binaries in Erlang −

Example

-module(helloworld). 
-export([start/0]). 

start() -> 
   io:fwrite("~p~n",[<<5,10,20>>]), 
   io:fwrite("~p~n",[<<"hello">>]).

When we run the above program, we will get the following result.

Output

<<5,10,20>>
<<"hello">>

Let’s look at the Erlang functions which are available to work with Binaries −