base is explicitly stated to avoid confusion (although it can be argued that base-10 is usually the default).
Consider this: given the textual representation of "12" (in ASCII), what is a numeric value?
- If it is base-10, it will be 1 * 10 + 2 → 12.
- If it was base-8 (oct), that would be 1 * 8 + 2 → 10.
- base-16 (hex), 1 * 16 + 2 → 18.
, Bencode 10, 42 ( ) "i42e".
-16 -10 , ASCII- .. base-10 , Bencoded . ( , Bencoded , , " ".)