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I hoped to see a paragraph on hexadecimal notation (eg: 0xbeef), alas we'll have to settle for Stack Overflow's [1] wisdom on this: > Short story: the 0 tells

I hoped to see a paragraph on hexadecimal notation (eg: 0xbeef), alas we'll have to settle for Stack Overflow's [1] wisdom on this: > Short story: the 0 tells the parser it's dealing with a constant (and not an identifier/reserved word). Something is still needed to specify the number base: the x is an arbitrary choice. [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2670639/why-are-hexadecimal-numbers-prefixed-with-0x#4581351 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2670639/why-are-hexadeci...

euroderf 4y ago
Lest we forget our lore: 0xDEADBEEF and (based on a true story!) 0xCAFEBABE.
- franky47 4y ago
  Or every vegetarian/vegan's favourite: 0xdeadf00d15baad
- harywilke 4y ago
  There's the BEEF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexspeak
gjm11 4y ago
The answer gives no evidence that the "x" is truly arbitrary and I am not inclined to believe it. "x" is one of the letters of "hexadecimal" and the letter-name sounds very much like "hex". Are we supposed to believe that Thompson or Kernighan or whoever it was picked a random letter of the alphabet and it just happened to be one of the two letters ("h" would be the other) with an obvious mnemonic connection to "hex"/"hexadecimal"?
wink 4y ago
*Steak Overflow