Beginning Java Data Structures and Algorithms

Algorithm for Converting Binary Numbers to Decimal

Number systems have different bases. Decimals numbers with a base of ten are what most of us are familiar with. Computers, on the other hand, use only ones and zeros (binary). Let's try to write some code that converts binary numbers to decimals.

Specifically, we want to develop an algorithm that accepts a string containing ones and zeros and returns an integer.

We can convert the binary string by following these steps:

1. Start from the end of the string and process each character at a time. The position of each digit in the binary string corresponds to a decimal number in a sequence.
2. To generate this sequence, you start from one and multiply by two every time, so one, two, four, eight, and ...