C＃AuthenticationTypes？

Question

I came across the following line in a piece of code that uses Microsoft Active Directory:

const AuthenticationTypes ADS_EDMSERVER_BIND = (AuthenticationTypes)0x8000;

What exactly does this line mean ? Particularly, what is the 0x8000 mean ?

Answer 1

0x8000 is just a hexadecimal representation of integer 32768 . So this line of code essentially defines a constant of enumerable type AuthenticationTypes with a value of 32768 . The number just specifies some AuthenticationTypes value or may be used as a mask in bit operations (eg | or &).

Hexadecimal representations are sometimes used to improve readability or show relations to binary values (there is a nice discussion here ). The simplest example is constants that are used in masks or with bit operators.