[c-nsp] 2811 crash...

[Peter Rathlev]

On Thu, 2008-01-24 at 14:04 +0000, Tim Franklin wrote:
> Yes - traditionally it's 0xDEADBEEF, I guess Cisco felt the need to
> distinguish between different sides of beef and so dropped an 'E' to add
> an index number :)
> 
> Seriously, it's an old coder utility / humour combo - if there's memory
> that's you shouldn't be using, rather than leaving it full of random
> values, you fill it with DEADBEEF.  If the program crashes or gives wrong
> answers, and you see DEADBEEF show up, you know it's a problem with
> looking at the wrong area of memory rather than some other kind of logic
> error.

Yup, the Jargon File entry backs this up.
http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/d/DEADBEEF.html

> Why DEADBEEF and not some other 'magic' number is up there with why you
> find so many workstations of long-time coders with the MAC of their
> Ethernet card re-programmed to be nn:nn:nn:C0:FF:FE...

Maybe even with two Es in the end, like 00:0B:AD:C0:FF:EE, right? :-)

Regards,
Peter