There are a set of common notations for the use of various radices. In computing fields, numbers in hexadecimal or preceded by 0x; numbers in binary are preceded by 0b, and octal numbers simply have a leading 0.

Mathematicians, on the other hand, prefer a more scalable notation system. Generally, numbers have a following subscript indicating a non-decimal base (e.g., 872₉), although more interesting systems, such as balanced ternary, can cause problems even here.