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 uni ...

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 progr ...

or digital

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

(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 phys ...

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 ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

) 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 (computing), keyboard by the reader and then saved to Compact Cassette (data), cassette tape or ...

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 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 (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 Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limit ...

. 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