Bit Syntax: Defaults

Introduction#

The Erlang doc titled Bit Syntax has a section called Defaults that contains an error and the doc is confusing as a whole. I rewrote it.

Defaults explained

4.4 Defaults
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The default Size depends on the type. For integer it is 8. For float it is 64. For binary it is the size of the specified binary:

1> Bin = << 17/integer, 3.2/float, <<97, 98, 99>>/binary >>. 
<<17,64,9,153,153,153,153,153,154,97,98,99>>

2> size(Bin). % Returns the number of bytes:
12            % 8 bits + 64 bits + 3*8 bits = 96 bits => 96/8 = 12 bytes

In matching, a binary segment without a Size is only allowed at t