What Is Byte Order Mark (BOM)?

Okay, let's speak about BOMs or Byte Order Marks. What the earth is a BOM, you might be asking yourself right now. What a great topic! A BOM is a series of bytes that, in computing words, indicates the byte order of a file or a stream of data. In essence, it instructs your computer in which direction to access the file. Depending on your system, how those bytes are organized can vary based on how computers store data in tiny units called bytes. Some systems receive the least significant byte first, called the "little-endian" byte order. Other systems receive bytes in "big-endian" order, which starts with the actual byte. Therefore, if you attempt to access a file made on a big-endian system on a little-endian system, the computer may become perplexed and read the bytes out of order. The BOM steps in at this point! It functions as a tiny flag that alerts the computer that the file was made using big-endian byte order. Now, things get intriguing because not all file formats use BOMs. Some file formats, such as UTF-8, expressly forbid using BOMs. So there may be problems if you include a BOM in a UTF-8 file. There are other possible problems with BOMs as well. If you include a BOM in a file you transmit to someone using old software, they might see some strange characters initially because some older software doesn't know what to do with BOMs. Therefore, while BOMs can help instruct your computer how to read a file, they could also give you headaches if you need to be more cautious. As with many other things in life, equilibrium is critical. A BOM is a brief byte sequence that instructs your computer how to open a file. It resembles a tiny pennant with the message, "Read me this way!" However, not all file formats support BOMs, and sending a file in the incorrect format or to a recipient with outdated software may result in problems. So friends, use BOMs carefully!