Hexspeak

0xBADEAFFE in his element

Hexspeak (from hexadecimal and English to speak = to speak) are numbers in hexadecimal notation, which can also be read as words in the mostly English language , for example the decimal number 57005in hexadecimal representation is DEAD( dead ). German-speaking developers also use German word combinations such as BADEAFFE.

Hexspeak was invented by programmers who needed a magic number as a unique identifier to mark data or memory areas . In the hexadecimal representation, in addition to Arabic numerals and the letters from the Latin alphabet are used, some numbers may look like readable English words, with the numeric occasionally according Leetspeak represent letters (eg. As the digit the letters represent ). 0123456789ABCDEF5S

Common Hexspeak Numbers

Currently (2010) the more frequently used hex-peak numbers have a length of 32 bits (corresponding to 8 hexadecimal digits) due to the 32-bit architecture widespread in today's computer systems . With the increasing emergence of 64-bit systems, hex-peak numbers with 64-bit are also more common, but they are still rather rare, as are hex-peak numbers with 16-bit.

Well-known Hexspeak numbers are for example:

Hexadecimal number	English	German (roughly)
0xDEADBEEF	dead beef	dead beef
0xDECAFBAD	decaf bath	decaffeinated (is) bad
0xCAFEBABE	cafe babe	Cafe hearts
0xC001CAFE	cool cafe	cold coffee
0xBAADF00D	bad food	bad food
0xBAADFEED	bad feed	bad feed
0xC0EDBABE	coed babe	beautiful student
0x1FEDBEEF	one fed beef	a fed cattle
0xBADCAB1E	bad cable	bad cable
0xBADC0DED	bad coded	badly programmed
0xC001D00D	cool dood	cool guy
0xDEADC0DE	dead code	dead code
0xDEADDA7A	dead data	dead data
0x1BADBABE	one bad babe	a lousy babe
0xC0CAC01A 0xADD511FE	coca cola adds life	Coca-Cola refreshes
0xC0DEBA5E	codebase	Codebase (complete source code of an application)
0xABAD1DEA	a bad idea	a bad idea
0xBA55	bass	bass
0xBADA55	bad ass	crass guy
0xB16B00B5	big boobs	big boobs
0xBADEAFFE		Bathing monkey
0xAFFED00F		Monkey stupid
0xBADB007	bad boat	Bad loading process ( booting )

Hexspeak numbers as magic numbers

Many processors , operating systems, and debuggers make use of magic numbers ; Hexspeak numbers are often chosen for quick identification.

Well-known examples:

• 0xABADBABE (a bad babe) is the magic number for the Boot Zero Block at Apple .
• 0xBAADF00D (bad food) is used in Microsoft's function LocalAlloc(LMEM_FIXED)to identify unused heap memory.
• 0xDEADBEEF (dead beef) is used as the magic debug number on IBM's RS / 6000 systems and on computers with Mac OS on 32-bit PowerPC processors .
• 0xFEE1DEAD (feel dead) is the Linux - system call reboot() used.
• 0xCAFEBABE (cafe babe) is the magic number of all Java class files.
• 0xBADCAB1E (bad cable) is used in Embedded Visual Studio by the on-device debugger if the connection from the debugger to the device was interrupted during debugging.
• 0xFEEDC0DE (feed code) was used in the OS-9 operating system as an initialization value for unused memory.
• 0xDEADFACE In the OS-9 operating system, (dead face) was a magic number at the beginning of the heading of a module.

Other notations

As in the examples above, the C programming language also uses the prefix to identify a character string as a hexadecimal number. This prefix is ​​usually ignored when interpreting a hexspeak number as English text. A counterexample is the network management system CA Spectrum , which uses the TCP port for communication between server and client systems, which is read in C notation as , i.e. Ox beef (German: Ochsenfleisch ). Since this port specification is often required when programming your own applications, an easy-to-remember donkey bridge was created here. 0x 488790xbeef

Such markings can also be part of the English text in other notations. Examples:

• In x86 - Assembler hexadecimal numbers with a suffix h marked. For example, here would be a Hexspeak number 0FEEDADEADF15h( feed a dead fish ).
• In the Pascal programming language and other assemblers, hexadecimal numbers are $preceded by a. This means that hex-peak numbers are possible like $EED( seed , the default value of a pseudo-random number generator ).

Web links

• HexOddities - a collection of Hexspeak numbers
• DEADBEEF . Jargon File
• Why CAFEBABE? Newsgroup discussion

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dean Howell: Dear Microsoft, Thanks For The 0xB16B00B5 ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved July 21, 2012. 
2. ^ Dave Falkenburg, Brian Topping: Debugging on PowerPC. Retrieved April 18, 2008 . 
3. Jump up ↑ man page for reboot (2). Retrieved April 18, 2008 . 
4. ↑ VM Spec: The class File Format. In: The Java Virtual Machine Specification. Retrieved September 8, 2015 .