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Sentinel Node
In computer programming, a sentinel node is a specifically designated node used with linked lists and trees as a traversal path terminator. This type of node does not hold or reference any data managed by the data structure. Benefits Sentinels are used as an alternative over using NULL as the path terminator in order to get one or more of the following benefits: * Marginally increased speed of operations * Increased data structure robustness (arguably) Drawbacks * Marginally increased memory usage, especially when linked list is short. Examples Search in a linked list Below are two versions of a subroutine (implemented in the C programming language) for looking up a given search key in a singly linked list. The first one uses the sentinel value NULL, and the second one a (pointer to the) sentinel node Sentinel, as the end-of-list indicator. The declarations of the singly linked list data structure and the outcomes of both subroutines are the same. struct sll_node sll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Node (computer Science)
A node is a basic unit of a data structure, such as a linked list or Tree (data structure), tree data structure. Nodes contain data and also may link to other nodes. Links between nodes are often implemented by Pointer (computer programming), pointers. Nodes and trees Nodes are often arranged into tree structures. A node represents the information contained in a single data structure. These nodes may contain a value or condition, or possibly serve as another independent data structure. Nodes are represented by a single parent node. The highest point on a tree structure is called a root node, which does not have a parent node, but serves as the parent or 'grandparent' of all of the nodes below it in the tree. The height of a node is determined by the total number of edges on the path from that node to the furthest leaf node, and the height of the tree is equal to the height of the root node. Node depth is determined by the distance between that particular node and the root node. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canary Value
Canary originally referred to the Spanish island of Gran Canaria in the North Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding Canary Islands. It may also refer to: Animals Birds * Canaries, birds in the genera ''Serinus'' and ''Crithagra'' including, among others: ** Atlantic canary (''Serinus canaria''), a small wild bird *** Domestic canary, ''Serinus canaria domestica'', a small pet or aviary bird, also responsible for the "canary yellow" color term ** Yellow canary (''Crithagra flaviventris''), a small bird Fish * Canary damsel (''Similiparma lurida''), fish of the family Pomacentridae, found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean * Canary moray (''Gymnothorax bacalladoi''), an eel of the family Muraenidae * Canary rockfish (''Sebastes pinniger''), of the family Sebastidae, found in the northeast Pacific Ocean People * Canary Burton (born 1942), American keyboardist, composer and writer * Canary Conn (born 1949), American entertainer and author * Bill Canary (fl. 1994), Republican campaign consul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Formatting And Storage Bugs
In computer science, data type limitations and software bugs can cause errors in system time, time and date calculation or display. These are most commonly manifestations of arithmetic overflow, but can also be the result of other issues. The best-known consequence of this type is the Y2K problem, but many other milestone dates or times exist that have caused or will cause problems depending on various programming deficiencies. Year 1975 On 5 January 1975, the 12-bit field that had been used for dates in the TOPS-10 operating system for DEC PDP-10 computers overflowed, in a bug known as "DATE75". The field value was calculated by taking the number of years since 1964, multiplying by 12, adding the number of months since January, multiplying by 31, and adding the number of days since the start of the month; putting into this gives 4 January 1975, which is therefore the latest encodable date. The "DATE-75" patch pushed the last encodable date to 1 February 2052, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentinel Value
In computer programming, a sentinel value (also referred to as a flag value, trip value, rogue value, signal value, or dummy data) is a special value in the context of an algorithm which uses its presence as a condition of termination, typically in a loop or recursive algorithm. The sentinel value is a form of in-band data that makes it possible to detect the end of the data when no out-of-band data (such as an explicit size indication) is provided. The value should be selected in such a way that it is guaranteed to be distinct from all legal data values since otherwise, the presence of such values would prematurely signal the end of the data (the semipredicate problem). A sentinel value is sometimes known as an " Elephant in Cairo", due to a joke where this is used as a physical sentinel. In safe languages, most sentinel values could be replaced with option types, which enforce explicit handling of the exceptional case. Examples Some examples of common sentinel values and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semipredicate Problem
In computer programming, a semipredicate problem occurs when a subroutine intended to return a useful value can fail, but the signalling of failure uses an otherwise valid return value. The problem is that the caller of the subroutine cannot tell what the result means in this case. Example The division operation yields a real number, but fails when the divisor is zero. If we were to write a function that performs division, we might choose to return 0 on this invalid input. However, if the dividend is 0, the result is 0 too. This means that there is no number we can return to uniquely signal attempted division by zero, since all real numbers are in the range of division. Practical implications Early programmers handled potentially exceptional cases such as division using a convention requiring the calling routine to verify the inputs before calling the division function. This had two problems: first, it greatly encumbered all code that performed division (a very common operat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Null Object Pattern
In object-oriented computer programming, a null object is an object with no referenced value or with defined neutral (''null'') behavior. The null object design pattern, which describes the uses of such objects and their behavior (or lack thereof), was first published as "Void Value" and later in the ''Pattern Languages of Program Design'' book series as "Null Object". Motivation In most object-oriented languages, such as Java or C#, references may be null. These references need to be checked to ensure they are not null before invoking any methods, because methods typically cannot be invoked on null references. The Objective-C language takes another approach to this problem and does nothing when sending a message to nil; if a return value is expected, nil (for objects), 0 (for numeric values), NO (for BOOL values), or a struct (for struct types) with all its members initialised to null/0/NO/zero-initialised struct is returned. Description Instead of using a null referen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic String
In computer programming, a magic string is an input that a programmer believes will never come externally and which activates otherwise hidden functionality. A user of this program would likely provide input that gives an expected response in most situations. However, if the user does in fact innocently (unintentionally) provide the pre-defined input, invoking the internal functionality, the program response is often quite unexpected to the user (thus appearing "magical"). Background Typically, the implementation of magic strings is due to time constraints. A developer must find a fast solution instead of delving more deeply into a problem and finding a better solution. For example, when testing a program that takes a user's personal details and verifies their credit card number, a developer may decide to add a magic string shortcut whereby entering the unlikely input of "***" as a credit card number would cause the program to automatically proceed as if the card were valid, wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic Number (programming)
In computer programming, a magic number is any of the following: * A unique value with unexplained meaning or multiple occurrences which could (preferably) be replaced with a named constant * A constant numerical or text value used to identify a file format or protocol ) * A distinctive unique value that is unlikely to be mistaken for other meanings (e.g., Universally Unique Identifiers) Unnamed numerical constants The term ''magic number'' or ''magic constant'' refers to the anti-pattern of using numbers directly in source code. This breaks one of the oldest rules of programming, dating back to the COBOL, FORTRAN and PL/1 manuals of the 1960s. In the following example that computes the price after tax, 1.05 is considered a magic number: price_tax = 1.05 * price The use of unnamed magic numbers in code obscures the developers' intent in choosing that number, increases opportunities for subtle errors, and makes it more difficult for the program to be adapted and extended ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guard (computer Science)
In computer programming, a guard is a Boolean expression that must evaluate to true if the execution of the program is to continue in the branch in question. Regardless of which programming language is used, a guard clause, guard code, or guard statement is a check of integrity preconditions used to avoid errors during execution. The term guard clause is a Software design pattern attributed to Kent Beck who codified many often unnamed coding practices into named software design patterns, the practice of using this technique dates back to at least the early 1960's. The guard clause most commonly is added at the beginning of a procedure and is said to "guard" the rest of the procedure by handling edgecases upfront. Uses A typical example is checking that a reference about to be processed is not null, which avoids null-pointer failures. Other uses include using a Boolean field for idempotence (so subsequent calls are nops), as in the dispose pattern. public String foo(Str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elephant In Cairo
An elephant in Cairo is a term used in computer programming to describe a piece of data that matches the search criteria purposefully inserted at the end of a search space, in order to make sure the search algorithm terminates; it is a humorous example of a sentinel value. The term derives from a humorous essay circulated on the Internet that was published in ''Byte'' magazine in September 1989, describing how various professions would go about hunting elephants. Algorithm When hunting elephants, the article describes programmers as following this algorithm: :# Go to Africa. :# Start at the Cape of Good Hope.The Cape of Good Hope has been traditionally believed to be Africa's southernmost point, but that is actually Cape Agulhas''. :# Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west, :# During each traverse pass: :#:* Catch each animal seen. :#:* Compare each animal caught to a known elephant. :#:* Stop when a match is detected. This algorith ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutex
In computer science, a lock or mutex (from mutual exclusion) is a synchronization primitive that prevents state from being modified or accessed by multiple threads of execution at once. Locks enforce mutual exclusion concurrency control policies, and with a variety of possible methods there exist multiple unique implementations for different applications. Types Generally, locks are ''advisory locks'', where each thread cooperates by acquiring the lock before accessing the corresponding data. Some systems also implement ''mandatory locks'', where attempting unauthorized access to a locked resource will force an exception in the entity attempting to make the access. The simplest type of lock is a binary semaphore. It provides exclusive access to the locked data. Other schemes also provide shared access for reading data. Other widely implemented access modes are exclusive, intend-to-exclude and intend-to-upgrade. Another way to classify locks is by what happens when the lock stra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linked List
In computer science, a linked list is a linear collection of data elements whose order is not given by their physical placement in memory. Instead, each element points to the next. It is a data structure consisting of a collection of nodes which together represent a sequence. In its most basic form, each node contains data, and a reference (in other words, a ''link'') to the next node in the sequence. This structure allows for efficient insertion or removal of elements from any position in the sequence during iteration. More complex variants add additional links, allowing more efficient insertion or removal of nodes at arbitrary positions. A drawback of linked lists is that data access time is linear in respect to the number of nodes in the list. Because nodes are serially linked, accessing any node requires that the prior node be accessed beforehand (which introduces difficulties in pipelining). Faster access, such as random access, is not feasible. Arrays have better cache ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
