Glossary · Data & representations

Token

An integer identifier produced by a model-specific tokenizer from text, bytes, images, audio, or another input representation. A token can be a whole word, part of a word, punctuation, whitespace, a byte sequence, or a special control symbol.

Common confusion

Character-to-token ratios vary by language, content, and tokenizer, so count with the target model's tokenizer or provider tools.

Related terms

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