What type of data representation is used by hexadecimal?

Hexadecimal is a base-16 number system used for data representation. Each digit in a hexadecimal number represents a value from 0 to 15. This means that a single hexadecimal digit can correspond to four binary digits (bits), since 2^4 = 16.

When converting from binary to hexadecimal, groups of four bits in binary are mapped to a single hexadecimal digit. For instance, the binary number 1010 is equivalent to the hexadecimal digit A because it represents the decimal value of 10.

Understanding this conversion is crucial in computing science, as hexadecimal notation is commonly used in programming, color codes in web design, and memory address representation. Thus, the correct answer reflects that each hexadecimal digit is effectively a compact representation of 4 bits of binary data.