I have a very poor understanding of gray code in general and I find it to be a difficult thing to learn. While trying to learn about it I stumbled upon this seemingly looking trivial question that I can't answer.
Can the bit pattern 01110011 represent offset gray-code?
What is "gray-code" and how do I construct it and recognize offset gray-code?
Yes. Any bit pattern can represent an offset gray-code number. Gray code is an ordering of the binary numeral system such that two successive values differ in only one bit (binary digit).To fully understand it you need and example and compare with default binary. In binary:
1-> 0001
2-> 0010
3-> 0011
You can see that in binary when incrementing from 1 to 2, there are happening two bit operations. One is that the first bit turns off and second the 2'nd bit lights up. So this violates the rule of gray-code - "two successive values differ in only one bit".
In gray code it would look like this:
1-> 0001
2-> 0011
3-> 0010
Can you see the difference? When we incremented from 1 to 2, the first bit didn't turned off anymore and the second lighted up. So only one bit operation happened.
You can also check out this article which has a C program that generates gray-codes between 1-32 bits. Using-Gray-Codes
The gray codes are designed to cover all possible bit patterns (of a given length). So 01110011 is perforce a gray code.
The purpose is to enumerate all patterns while changing a single bit at a time.
E.g. 000 001 011 010 110 111 101 100
You don't recognize a code in isolation, the sequence matters.
The reason these codes were invented is practical: if you change two bits or more at a time, for instance in a mechanical device, you are never sure that the changes are perfectly simultaneous and unwanted patterns can be generated transitorily.