Convert byte to bits, can it be done in Java?

Question

I'm working on a compression program for class, and I'm wondering how I can convert a byte to the bits it is represented by. Does anybody know if you can do this in Java?

Answer 1

I don't think that's what I'm looking for. What I
want is the 1s and 0s representation of the character
A, B, and so on.Characters in Java are represented by the 16 bit Unicode. Each character has been assigned a 16 bit number according to the code charts here,
http://www.unicode.org/
For example a latin 'A' is represented by the number 65,
char c = 'A'; // bit pattern 1000001
int i = c;       // same bit pattern 1000001
System.out.println(c + " = " + i);The above prints the 'A' both as a character and as a number. In both cases it's the same bit pattern 1000001. To extract the bit pattern you can loop 16 times and utilize the following bitwise operations,
   if ((i&1) == 1) // Rightmost bit in i is a 1 (set)
   i = i >> 1; The bit pattern in i is shifted one bit position to the right