|
Reinterpret Cast
In computer science, a type punning is any programming technique that subverts or circumvents the type system of a programming language in order to achieve an effect that would be difficult or impossible to achieve within the bounds of the formal language. In C and C++, constructs such as pointer type conversion and union — C++ adds reference type conversion and reinterpret_cast to this list — are provided in order to permit many kinds of type punning, although some kinds are not actually supported by the standard language. In the Pascal programming language, the use of records with variants may be used to treat a particular data type in more than one manner, or in a manner not normally permitted. Sockets example One classic example of type punning is found in the Berkeley sockets interface. The function to bind an opened but uninitialized socket to an IP address is declared as follows: int bind(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *my_addr, socklen_t addrlen); The bind fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union (computer Science)
In computer science, a union is a value that may have any of several representations or formats within the same position in memory; that consists of a variable that may hold such a data structure. Some programming languages support special data types, called union types, to describe such values and variables. In other words, a union type definition will specify which of a number of permitted primitive types may be stored in its instances, e.g., "float or long integer". In contrast with a record (or structure), which could be defined to contain both a float ''and'' an integer; in a union, there is only one value at any given time. A union can be pictured as a chunk of memory that is used to store variables of different data types. Once a new value is assigned to a field, the existing data is overwritten with the new data. The memory area storing the value has no intrinsic type (other than just bytes or words of memory), but the value can be treated as one of several abstract data ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pointer (computer Programming)
In computer science, a pointer is an object in many programming languages that stores a memory address. This can be that of another value located in computer memory, or in some cases, that of memory-mapped computer hardware. A pointer ''references'' a location in memory, and obtaining the value stored at that location is known as ''dereferencing'' the pointer. As an analogy, a page number in a book's index could be considered a pointer to the corresponding page; dereferencing such a pointer would be done by flipping to the page with the given page number and reading the text found on that page. The actual format and content of a pointer variable is dependent on the underlying computer architecture. Using pointers significantly improves performance for repetitive operations, like traversing iterable data structures (e.g. strings, lookup tables, control tables and tree structures). In particular, it is often much cheaper in time and space to copy and dereference pointers th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical disciplines (including the design and implementation of Computer architecture, hardware and Computer programming, software). Computer science is generally considered an area of research, academic research and distinct from computer programming. Algorithms and data structures are central to computer science. The theory of computation concerns abstract models of computation and general classes of computational problem, problems that can be solved using them. The fields of cryptography and computer security involve studying the means for secure communication and for preventing Vulnerability (computing), security vulnerabilities. Computer graphics (computer science), Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Progr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signed Zero
Signed zero is zero with an associated sign. In ordinary arithmetic, the number 0 does not have a sign, so that −0, +0 and 0 are identical. However, in computing, some number representations allow for the existence of two zeros, often denoted by −0 (negative zero) and +0 (positive zero), regarded as equal by the numerical comparison operations but with possible different behaviors in particular operations. This occurs in the ''sign and magnitude'' and ''ones' complement'' signed number representations for integers, and in most floating-point number representations. The number 0 is usually encoded as +0, but can be represented by either +0 or −0. The IEEE 754 standard for floating-point arithmetic (presently used by most computers and programming languages that support floating-point numbers) requires both +0 and −0. Real arithmetic with signed zeros can be considered a variant of the extended real number line such that 1/−0 = −∞ and 1/+0 = +∞; division is only undefi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stride Of An Array
In computer programming, the stride of an array (also referred to as increment, pitch or step size) is the number of locations in computer memory, memory between beginnings of successive Array data structure, array elements, measured in bytes or in units of the size of the array's elements. The stride cannot be smaller than the element size but can be larger, indicating extra space between elements. An array with stride of exactly the same size as the size of each of its elements is contiguous in memory. Such arrays are sometimes said to have unit stride. Unit stride arrays are sometimes more efficient than non-unit stride arrays, but non-unit stride arrays can be more efficient for 2D array, 2D or multi-dimensional arrays, depending on the effects of CPU cache, caching and the memory access pattern, access patterns used . This can be attributed to the Locality of reference, principle of locality, specifically ''spatial locality''. Reasons for non-unit stride Arrays may have a stri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undefined Behavior
In computer programming, undefined behavior (UB) is the result of executing a program whose behavior is prescribed to be unpredictable, in the language specification to which the computer code adheres. This is different from unspecified behavior, for which the language specification does not prescribe a result, and implementation-defined behavior that defers to the documentation of another component of the platform (such as the ABI or the translator documentation). In the C community, undefined behavior may be humorously referred to as "nasal demons", after a comp.std.c post that explained undefined behavior as allowing the compiler to do anything it chooses, even "to make demons fly out of your nose". Overview Some programming languages allow a program to operate differently or even have a different control flow than the source code, as long as it exhibits the same user-visible side effects, ''if undefined behavior never happens during program execution''. Undefined behavior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unspecified Behavior
Unspecified behavior is behavior that may vary on different implementations of a programming language. A program can be said to contain unspecified behavior when its source code may produce an executable that exhibits different behavior when compiled on a different compiler, or on the same compiler with different settings, or indeed in different parts of the same executable. While the respective language standards or specifications may impose a range of possible behaviors, the exact behavior depends on the implementation and may not be completely determined upon examination of the program's source code.ISO/IEC (2009-05-29). ''ISO/IEC PDTR 24772.2: Guidance to Avoiding Vulnerabilities in Programming Languages through Language Selection and Use'' Unspecified behavior will often not manifest itself in the resulting program's external behavior, but it may sometimes lead to differing outputs or results, potentially causing portability problems. Definition To enable compilers to produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aliasing (computing)
In computing, aliasing describes a situation in which a data location in memory can be accessed through different symbolic names in the program. Thus, modifying the data through one name implicitly modifies the values associated with all aliased names, which may not be expected by the programmer. As a result, aliasing makes it particularly difficult to understand, analyze and optimize programs. Aliasing analysers intend to make and compute useful information for understanding aliasing in programs. Examples Buffer overflow For example, most implementations of the C programming language do not perform array bounds checking. One can then exploit the implementation of the programming language by the compiler and the computer architecture's assembly language conventions, to achieve aliasing effects by writing outside of the array (a type of buffer overflow). This invokes undefined behaviour according to the C language specification; however many implementations of C will show the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Data Structure Alignment
Data structure alignment is the way data is arranged and accessed in computer memory. It consists of three separate but related issues: data alignment, data structure padding, and packing. The CPU in modern computer hardware performs reads and writes to memory most efficiently when the data is ''naturally aligned'', which generally means that the data's memory address is a multiple of the data size. For instance, in a 32-bit architecture, the data may be aligned if the data is stored in four consecutive bytes and the first byte lies on a 4-byte boundary. ''Data alignment'' is the aligning of elements according to their natural alignment. To ensure natural alignment, it may be necessary to insert some ''padding'' between structure elements or after the last element of a structure. For example, on a 32-bit machine, a data structure containing a 16-bit value followed by a 32-bit value could have 16 bits of ''padding'' between the 16-bit value and the 32-bit value to align the 32-b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quake III
''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing primarily on multiplayer gameplay. The single-player mode is played against computer-controlled bots. It features music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly founder Bill Leeb. Notable features of ''Quake III Arena'' include the minimalist design, lacking rarely used items and features; the extensive customizability of player settings such as field of view, texture detail and enemy model; and advanced movement features such as strafe-jumping and rocket-jumping. The game was praised by reviewers who, for the most part, described the gameplay as fun and engaging. Many liked the crisp graphics and focus on multiplayer. ''Quake III Arena'' has also been used extensively in professional electronic sports tournaments such as QuakeCon, Cyb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fast Inverse Square Root
Fast inverse square root, sometimes referred to as Fast InvSqrt() or by the hexadecimal constant 0x5F3759DF, is an algorithm that estimates \frac, the Multiplicative inverse, reciprocal (or multiplicative inverse) of the square root of a 32-bit floating-point number x in Single-precision floating-point format#IEEE 754 single-precision binary floating-point format: binary32, IEEE 754 floating-point format. This operation is used in digital signal processing to Unit vector, normalize a vector, such as scaling it to length 1. For example, computer graphics programs use inverse square roots to compute angle of incidence (optics), angles of incidence and Reflection (computer graphics), reflection for computer graphics lighting, lighting and shading. Predated by similar video game algorithms, this one is best known for its implementation in 1999 in ''Quake III Arena'', a first-person shooter video game heavily based on 3D graphics. The algorithm only started appearing on public forums ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maintainability
In engineering, maintainability is the ease with which a product can be maintained to: * correct defects or their cause, * Repair or replace faulty or worn-out components without having to replace still working parts, * prevent unexpected working conditions, * maximize a product's useful life, * maximize efficiency, reliability, and safety, * meet new requirements, * make future maintenance easier, or * cope with a changing environment. In some cases, maintainability involves a system of continuous improvement - learning from the past to improve the ability to maintain systems, or improve the reliability of systems based on maintenance experience. In telecommunication and several other engineering fields, the term maintainability has the following meanings: * A characteristic of design and installation, expressed as the probability that an item will be retained in or restored to a specified condition within a given period of time, when the maintenance is performed by prescribed p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
