A listing or program listing is a printed

list A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...

of lines of

computer code A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These pr ...

or digital

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...

(in human-readable form).

Use cases

Listings are commonly used in

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

and computer-related

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...

s to show examples of code. In the early days of programming, it was used to hand-check a program and as permanent storage. It was also common in 1970s and 1980s computer enthusiast magazines (for instance Creative Computing) and books like BASIC Computer Games for

type-in program A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, ...

s. Today,

hard copy ''Hard Copy'' is an American tabloid television show that ran in syndication from 1989 to 1999. ''Hard Copy'' was aggressive in its use of questionable material on television, including gratuitous violence. The original hosts of ''Hard Copy' ...

listings are seldom used because display screens can present more lines than formerly, programs tend to be modular, storage in

soft copy ''Hard Copy'' is an American tabloid television show that ran in syndication from 1989 to 1999. ''Hard Copy'' was aggressive in its use of questionable material on television, including gratuitous violence. The original hosts of ''Hard Copy'' ...

is considered preferable to

, and digital material is easily transmitted via networks, or on disks or tapes. Furthermore, data sets tend to be too large to be conveniently put on paper, and they are more easily searched in soft-copy form. Assembly-code listings are occasionally analysed by programmers who want to understand how a compiler is translating their source code into assembly language. For example, the

GNU C Compiler The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages, hardware architectures and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free software ...

(gcc) will produce an assembly code listing if it is invoked with the command-line option -S. Listings of computer programs are still important in US patent law. They are defined as follows in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure:Manual of Patent Examining Procedure 37 C.F.R. 1.96, http://www.bitlaw.com/source/37cfr/1_96.html, 9th Edition, March 2014

References

External links

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Source code Text editor features {{compu-prog-stub