0xDEADBEEF

1. The hexadecimal word-fill pattern for freshly allocated memory under a number of IBM environments, including the RS/6000. Some modern debugging tools deliberately fill freed memory with this value.

2. Geek-speak for dead/gone/erased/eliminated/removed

“Your program is 0xDEADBEEF”
(meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory)

by Damian McMillan May 12, 2006