This article documents a 1996 discussion thread exploring the origin of 0xCAFEBABE, the magic number in Java class files. The author Bill Venners originally asked the comp.lang.java newsgroup why this value was chosen, and the thread collects community responses including guesses and humor.
Background
The Java class file format uses 0xCAFEBABE as its signature, allowing quick identification of .class files. This article is a historical archive from Artima's Inside JVM column.
- Source
- Lobsters
- Published
- Sep 22, 2026 at 08:05 AM
- Score
- 5.0 / 10