In Visual Studio C++, what are the memory allocation representations

debuggingvisual c++

In Visual Studio, we've all had "baadf00d", have seen seen "CC" and "CD" when inspecting variables in the debugger in C++ during run-time.

From what I understand, "CC" is in DEBUG mode only to indicate when a memory has been new() or alloc() and unitilialized. While "CD" represents delete'd or free'd memory. I've only seen "baadf00d" in RELEASE build (but I may be wrong).

Once in a while, we get into a situation of tacking memory leaks, buffer overflows, etc and these kind of information comes in handy.

Would somebody be kind enough to point out when and in what modes the memory are set to recognizable byte patterns for debugging purpose?

Best Answer

This link has more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_(programming)#Debug_values

* 0xABABABAB : Used by Microsoft's HeapAlloc() to mark "no man's land" guard bytes after allocated heap memory
* 0xABADCAFE : A startup to this value to initialize all free memory to catch errant pointers
* 0xBAADF00D : Used by Microsoft's LocalAlloc(LMEM_FIXED) to mark uninitialised allocated heap memory
* 0xBADCAB1E : Error Code returned to the Microsoft eVC debugger when connection is severed to the debugger
* 0xBEEFCACE : Used by Microsoft .NET as a magic number in resource files
* 0xCCCCCCCC : Used by Microsoft's C++ debugging runtime library to mark uninitialised stack memory
* 0xCDCDCDCD : Used by Microsoft's C++ debugging runtime library to mark uninitialised heap memory
* 0xDDDDDDDD : Used by Microsoft's C++ debugging heap to mark freed heap memory
* 0xDEADDEAD : A Microsoft Windows STOP Error code used when the user manually initiates the crash.
* 0xFDFDFDFD : Used by Microsoft's C++ debugging heap to mark "no man's land" guard bytes before and after allocated heap memory
* 0xFEEEFEEE : Used by Microsoft's HeapFree() to mark freed heap memory
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