lookahead

See also: look ahead

English

Etymology

look +‎ ahead

Pronunciation

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

lookahead (countable and uncountable, plural lookaheads)

1. (computing, software compilation) The analysis in advance of subsequent decisions that would be made if a particular branch of an algorithm was followed.

   Our computer chess program uses lookahead to avoid difficult endgames.

2. (regular expressions) The analysis of the subsequent characters before the regular expression is matched.

Hypernyms

• (regular expressions): lookaround

Hyponyms

• (regular expressions): negative lookahead ("?!" operator): a failed lookahead attempt
• (regular expressions): positive lookahead ("?=" operator): a successful lookahead attempt

See also

• lookaside
• lookbehind
• runahead