Why use hexadecimal constants?

Question

Sometimes I see Integer constants defined in hexadecimal, instead of decimal numbers. This is a small part I took from a GL10 class:

public static final int          


        

Answer 1

"It's obviously simpler to define 2914 instead of 0x0B62"

I don't know about that specific case, but quite often that is not true.

Out of the two questions:

• A) What is the bit value of 2914?
• B) What is the bit value of 0x0B62?

B will be answered more correctly faster by a lot of developmers. (This goes for similar questions as well)

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0x0B62 (it is 4 hex digits long so it reprensents a 16-bit number)

• the bits of 0 = 0000
• the bits of B = 1011
• the bits of 6 = 0110
• the bits of 2 = 0010

->

0000101101100010

(I dare you to do the same with 2914.)

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That is one reason for using the hex value, another is that the source of the value might use hex (the standard of a specification for example).

Sometimes I just find it silly, as in:

public static final int NUMBER_OF_TIMES_TO_ASK_FOR_CONFIRMATION = ...;

Would almost always be silly to write in hex, I'm sure there are some cases where it wouldn't.