Strings are objects of class String, which are normally simple 8-bit bytes that normally hold printable characters but that is not a requirement as you would see for they could also be used to hold binary data. Created using string literals (which are sequences of characters between delimiters that themselves do some conversion of the string itself) they are usually converted into more manageable forms to allow ease of processing. Binary data is more or less not that easy to process so a need for conversion or interpretation is needed which substitutes values with more standard types.