title: Difference between binary zeros and ASCII character zero
body: <pre><code>gcc (GCC) 4.8.1
  c89
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Hello,</p>
  
  <p>I was reading a book about pointers. And using this code as a sample:</p>
  
  <pre><code>memset(buffer, 0, sizeof buffer);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Will fill the buffer will binary zero and not the character zero.</p>
  
  <p>I am just wondering what is the difference between the binary and the character zero. I thought it was the same thing.</p>
  
  <p>I know that textual data is human readable characters and binary data is non-printable characters. Correct me if I am wrong. </p>
  
  <p>What would be a good example of binary data?</p>
  
  <p>For added example, if you are dealing with strings (textual data) you should use <code>fprintf</code>. And if you are using binary data you should use <code>fwrite</code>. If you want to write data to a file.</p>
  
  <p>Many thanks for any suggestions,</p>