0x01020304

0x01020304 is a hexadecimal numeric literal used in programming to denote a 32-bit value. The sequence of bytes expressed in hex is 01, 02, 03, 04, which corresponds to the value’s most-significant to least-significant bytes in big-endian notation.

Its decimal value is 16,909,060. In binary, the value is 00000001 00000010 00000011 00000100, reflecting the four constituent bytes.

Endianness and memory layout: In big-endian storage, the four bytes appear in memory as 01 02 03 04. In little-endian systems, the in-memory byte order is 04 03 02 01; reading those bytes as a 32-bit little-endian integer yields 0x04030201. The symbolic constant remains 0x01020304 when interpreted as a numeric value by software, with its actual byte order determined by architecture and data representation rules.

Typical uses: 0x01020304 is commonly employed as a teaching and debugging aid to illustrate endianness, byte order, and how multi-byte integers are serialized or manipulated at the bit/byte level. It is not tied to a specific file format or widely recognized magic number, but rather serves as a conventional pattern in examples and tests.

See also: Hexadecimal notation, Endianness, Byte order, 32-bit integers, Serialization concepts.