Highestaddressed

Highestaddressed is a term that appears in computing contexts to describe the highest address that is relevant within a given scope. It can denote either the highest memory address that has been accessed or the upper bound of an address space for a device, process, or data structure. The exact meaning depends on context, and the term is not part of a formal standard.

In memory architecture, highestaddressed often refers to the maximum addressable location provided by the processor's word size and addressing scheme. For example, in a 32-bit address space the highestaddressed would be the maximum value representable by the address length, whereas in a segmented or paged system it may be the upper limit of the current segment or page. It is a useful concept when computing layout, auditing memory usage, or performing bounds checking.

In software development and debugging, highestaddressed may be used as a variable name or as a concept in diagnostics to track which memory location has been accessed by a program. Tools such as profilers, debuggers, or memory-leak detectors may report the highestaddressed encountered during a run to help identify overruns, gaps, or suspicious access patterns.

Origin and usage of the term vary by project; it is not standardized in major specifications. It commonly appears in informal documentation, comments, or domain-specific guides. See also address space, maximum address, addressable memory, and memory boundary.