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reentrant |
4 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Reentrant \Re*["e]n"trant\ (-trant), a. Re["e]ntering; pointing or directed inwardds; as a re?ntrant angle. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: reentrant adj : (of angles) pointing inward; "a polygon with re-entrant angles" [syn: {re-entrant}] [ant: {salient}] From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: re-entrant adj : (of angles) pointing inward; "a polygon with re-entrant angles" [syn: {reentrant}] [ant: {salient}] From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) [foldoc]: re-entrantUsed to describe code which can have multiple simultaneous, interleaved, or nested invocations which will not interfere with each other This is important for {parallel processing}, {recursive} functions or subroutines, and {interrupt handling}. It is usually easy to arrange for multiple invocations (e.g. calls to a subroutine) to share one copy of the code and any read-only data but for the code to be re-entrant, each invocation must use its own copy of any modifiable data (or synchronised access to shared data). This is most often achieved using a {stack} and allocating local variables in a new {stack frame} for each invocation. Alternatively, the caller may pass in a pointer to a block of memory which that invocation can use (usually for outputting the result) or the code may allocate some memory on a {heap}, especially if the data must survive after the routine returns. Re-entrant code is often found in system software, such as {operating systems} and {teleprocessing monitors}. It is also a crucial component of {multithreaded} programs where the term "thread-safe" is often used instead of "re-entrant". (1996-12-21)
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