dereference

verb
/dɪˈɹɛfɹəns/UK

Etymology

From de- + reference.

  1. derived from referentia
  2. borrowed from référence
  3. prefixed as dereference — “de + reference

Definitions

  1. To access the value or object located in a memory location addressed by a pointer or…

    To access the value or object located in a memory location addressed by a pointer or another value interpreted as such; to access a value being referenced by something else.

    • Attempting to dereference a null pointer often results in a crash.
  2. To operate on the file or directory pointed to by a symbolic link, rather than on the…

    To operate on the file or directory pointed to by a symbolic link, rather than on the link itself.

    • With the find command, any symbolic links appearing after -follow will be dereferenced.
  3. To dissolve a symbolic link by replacing it with a copy of its target.

  4. + 1 more definition
    1. The act by which something is dereferenced.

      • Either each dereference must use a complicated DCAS protocol, or each pointer must include a version number that is managed on each modification and checked on each dereference, or storage management must be tightly coupled […]

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for dereference. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA