dereference

See also: déréférencé and déréférence

English

Etymology

de- +‎ reference

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈɹɛfɹəns/

Verb

dereference (third-person singular simple present dereferenc, present participle ing, simple past and past participle dereferenced)

1. (programming) To access the value or object located in a memory location stored in 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.

Translations

access something to which a pointer or another value points

• Finnish: viitata (fi) (+ adessive), seurata (fi)
• Portuguese: desreferenciar
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: разыменовать (ru) (razymenovatʹ)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• French: ^{(please verify)} déréférencer (fr)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Noun

dereference (plural dereferences)

1. The act by which something is dereferenced.
   • 1999, Michael Barry Greenwald, Non-blocking synchronization and system design (page 77)

     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 […]

See also

• pointer

References

• dereference on Wikipedia.Wikipedia