Knowledge representation is a key component to the success of all rule based systems including learning classifier systems (LCSs). This component brings insight into how to partition the problem space what in turn seeks prominent role in generalization capacity of the system as a whole. Recently, knowledge representation component has received great deal of attention within data mining communities due to its impacts on rule based systems in terms of efficiency and efficacy. The current work is an attempt to find a comprehensive and yet elaborate view into the existing knowledge representation techniques in LCS domain in general and XCS in specific. To achieve the objectives, knowledge representation techniques are grouped into different categories based on the classification approach in which they are incorporated. In each category, the underlying rule representation schema and the format of classifier condition to support the corresponding representation are presented. Furthermore, a precise explanation on the way that each technique partitions the problem space along with the extensive experimental results is provided. To have an elaborated view on the functionality of each technique, a comparative analysis of existing techniques on some conventional problems is provided. We expect this survey to be of interest to the LCS researchers and practitioners since it provides a guideline for choosing a proper knowledge representation technique for a given problem and also opens up new streams of research on this topic.