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

0xB62 equals 2914 :-)

For developers it is much easier to mentally picture the bit pattern of a constant when it is presented in hexadecimal than when it is presented as an base 10 integer.

This fact makes presentation in hexadecimal more suited for constants used in API's where bits and their positions (used as individual flags for instance) are relevant.