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Type Punning
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, applied disciplines (including the design and implementation of Computer architecture, hardware and Software engineering, software). 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 preventing security vulnerabilities. Computer graphics (computer science), Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Programming language theory considers different ways to describe computational processes, and database theory concerns the management of re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sign Bit
In computer science, the sign bit is a bit in a signed number representation that indicates the sign of a number. Although only signed numeric data types have a sign bit, it is invariably located in the most significant bit position, so the term may be used interchangeably with "most significant bit" in some contexts. Almost always, if the sign bit is 0, the number is non-negative (positive or zero). If the sign bit is 1 then the number is negative. Formats other than two's complement integers allow a signed zero: distinct "positive zero" and "negative zero" representations, the latter of which does not correspond to the mathematical concept of a negative number. When using a complement representation, to convert a signed number to a wider format the additional bits must be filled with copies of the sign bit in order to preserve its numerical value, a process called '' sign extension'' or ''sign propagation''. Sign bit weight in Two's complement Two's complement is by far th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unspecified Behavior
In computer programming, 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strict Aliasing
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. Aliased pointers Aliasing can occur in any language that can refer to one location in memory with more than one name (for example, with pointers). This is a common problem with functions that accept pointer arguments, and their tolerance (or the lack thereof) for aliasing must be carefully documented, particularly for functions that perform complex manipulations on memory areas passed to them. Specified aliasing Controlled aliasing behaviour may be desirable in some cases (that is, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undefined Behavior
In computer programming, a program exhibits undefined behavior (UB) when it contains, or is executing code for which its programming language specification does not mandate any specific requirements. 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 programming 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 from the source code, as long as it exhibits the same user-visible side effects, ''if undefined behavior never happens during program execution''. Undef ... [...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. Aliased pointers Aliasing can occur in any language that can refer to one location in memory with more than one name (for example, with pointers). This is a common problem with functions that accept pointer arguments, and their tolerance (or the lack thereof) for aliasing must be carefully documented, particularly for functions that perform complex manipulations on memory areas passed to them. Specified aliasing Controlled aliasing behaviour may be desirable in some cases (that is, ... [...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 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quake III
''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 first-person shooter game 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 a minimalist design, very extensively customizable 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'', often being considered one of the greatest video games ever made, has also been used extensively in professional electronic sports tournaments such as Quak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fast Inverse Square Root
Fast inverse square root, sometimes referred to as or by the hexadecimal constant , 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 standard: binary32, IEEE 754 floating-point format. The algorithm is best known for its implementation in 1999 in ''Quake III Arena'', a first-person shooter video game heavily based on 3D graphics. With subsequent hardware advancements, especially the x86 Streaming SIMD Extensions, SSE instruction rsqrtss, this algorithm is not generally the best choice for modern computers, though it remains an interesting historical example. The algorithm accepts a 32-bit floating-point number as the input and stores a halved value for later use. Then, treating the bits representing the floating-point number as a 32-bit integer, a logical shift right by one bit is performed and the result subtracted from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maintainability
Maintainability is the ease of maintaining or providing maintenance for a functioning product or service. Depending on the field, it can have slightly different meanings. Usage in different fields Engineering 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. Telecommunication In telecommunications and several other engineering fields, the term maintainability has the following ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assertion (computing)
In computer programming, specifically when using the imperative programming paradigm, an assertion is a predicate (a Boolean-valued function over the state space, usually expressed as a logical proposition using the variables of a program) connected to a point in the program, that always should evaluate to true at that point in code execution. Assertions can help a programmer read the code, help a compiler compile it, or help the program detect its own defects. For the latter, some programs check assertions by actually evaluating the predicate as they run. Then, if it is not in fact true – an assertion failure – the program considers itself to be broken and typically deliberately crashes or throws an assertion failure exception. Details The following code contains two assertions, x > 0 and x > 1, and they are indeed true at the indicated points during execution: x = 1; assert x > 0; x++; assert x > 1; Programmers can use assertions to help specify programs and to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comment (computer Programming)
In computer programming, a comment is text embedded in source code that a translator (compiler or interpreter (computing), interpreter) ignores. Generally, a comment is an annotation intended to make the code easier for a programmer to understand often explaining an aspect that is not readily apparent in the program (non-comment) code. For this article, ''comment'' refers to the same concept in a programming language, markup language, configuration file and any similar context. Some development tools, other than a source code translator, do parse comments to provide capabilities such as API documentation generator, document generation, static analysis, and version control integration. The comparison of programming languages (syntax)#Comments, syntax of comments varies by programming language yet there are repeating patterns in the syntax among languages as well as similar aspects related to comment content. The flexibility supported by comments allows for a wide degree of cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
