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Glossary of computer science 13/19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_computer_science reference science, encyclopedia 2026-05-05T07:50:43.180793+00:00 kb-cron

postcondition In computer programming, a condition or predicate that must always be true just after the execution of some section of code or after an operation in a formal specification. Postconditions are sometimes tested using assertions within the code itself. Often, postconditions are simply included in the documentation of the affected section of code.

precondition In computer programming, a condition or predicate that must always be true just prior to the execution of some section of code or before an operation in a formal specification. If a precondition is violated, the effect of the section of code becomes undefined and thus may or may not carry out its intended work. Security problems can arise due to incorrect preconditions.

primary storage (Also known as main memory, internal memory or prime memory), often referred to simply as memory, is the only one directly accessible to the CPU. The CPU continuously reads instructions stored there and executes them as required. Any data actively operated on is also stored there in uniform manner.

primitive data type

priority queue An abstract data type which is like a regular queue or stack data structure, but where additionally each element has a "priority" associated with it. In a priority queue, an element with high priority is served before an element with low priority. In some implementations, if two elements have the same priority, they are served according to the order in which they were enqueued, while in other implementations, ordering of elements with the same priority is undefined.

procedural programming

Procedural generation

procedure In computer programming, a subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Subroutines may be defined within programs, or separately in libraries that can be used by many programs. In different programming languages, a subroutine may be called a routine, subprogram, function, method, or procedure. Technically, these terms all have different definitions. The generic, umbrella term callable unit is sometimes used.

program lifecycle phase Program lifecycle phases are the stages a computer program undergoes, from initial creation to deployment and execution. The phases are edit time, compile time, link time, distribution time, installation time, load time, and run time.

programming language A formal language, which comprises a set of instructions that produce various kinds of output. Programming languages are used in computer programming to implement algorithms.

programming language implementation Is a system for executing computer programs. There are two general approaches to programming language implementation: interpretation and compilation.

programming language theory (PLT) is a branch of computer science that deals with the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of programming languages and of their individual features. It falls within the discipline of computer science, both depending on and affecting mathematics, software engineering, linguistics and even cognitive science. It has become a well-recognized branch of computer science, and an active research area, with results published in numerous journals dedicated to PLT, as well as in general computer science and engineering publications.

Prolog Is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily as a declarative programming language: the program logic is expressed in terms of relations, represented as facts and rules. A computation is initiated by running a query over these relations.

Python Is an interpreted, high-level and general-purpose programming language. Created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991, Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of significant whitespace. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach aim to help programmers write clear, logical code for small and large-scale projects.

== Q ==

quantum computing The use of quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation. A quantum computer is used to perform such computation, which can be implemented theoretically or physically.

queue A collection in which the entities in the collection are kept in order and the principal (or only) operations on the collection are the addition of entities to the rear terminal position, known as enqueue, and removal of entities from the front terminal position, known as dequeue.

quicksort Also partition-exchange sort. An efficient sorting algorithm which serves as a systematic method for placing the elements of a random access file or an array in order.

== R ==

R programming language R is a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics supported by the R Foundation for Statistical Computing. The R language is widely used among statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software and data analysis.

radix Also base. In digital numeral systems, the number of unique digits, including the digit zero, used to represent numbers in a positional numeral system. For example, in the decimal/denary system (the most common system in use today) the radix (base number) is ten, because it uses the ten digits from 0 through 9, and all other numbers are uniquely specified by positional combinations of these ten base digits; in the binary system that is the standard in computing, the radix is two, because it uses only two digits, 0 and 1, to uniquely specify each number.

record A record (also called a structure, struct, or compound data) is a basic data structure. Records in a database or spreadsheet are usually called "rows".

recursion Occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics and computer science, where a function being defined is applied within its own definition. While this apparently defines an infinite number of instances (function values), it is often done in such a way that no infinite loop or infinite chain of references can occur.