| dead-tree version
= D =
deadlock
DEADBEEF /ded-beef/ n.
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 as a way of
converting heisenbugs into Bohr bugs. As in "Your
program is DEADBEEF" (meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory);
if you start from an odd half-word boundary, of course, you have
BEEFDEAD. See also the anecdote under fool and dead beef attack.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
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