:crunch: 1. vi. To process, usually in a time-consuming or
complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is
nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the
triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000.
"FORTRAN programs do mostly {number-crunching}." 2. vt. To
reduce the size of a file by a complicated scheme that produces bit
configurations completely unrelated to the original data, such as
by a Huffman code. (The file ends up looking something like a
paper document would if somebody crunched the paper into a wad.)
Since such compression usually takes more computations than simpler
methods such as run-length encoding, the term is doubly
appropriate. (This meaning is usually used in the construction
`file crunch(ing)' to distinguish it from {number-crunching}.)
See {compress}. 3. n. The character `#'. Used at XEROX
and CMU, among other places. See {{ASCII}}. 4. vt. To squeeze
program source into a minimum-size representation that will still
compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for a
famous program on the BBC micro that crunched BASIC source in order
to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so
the number of characters mattered). {Obfuscated C Contest}
entries are often crunched; see the first example under that
entry.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is
nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the
triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000.
"FORTRAN programs do mostly {number-crunching}." 2. vt. To
reduce the size of a file by a complicated scheme that produces bit
configurations completely unrelated to the original data, such as
by a Huffman code. (The file ends up looking something like a
paper document would if somebody crunched the paper into a wad.)
Since such compression usually takes more computations than simpler
methods such as run-length encoding, the term is doubly
appropriate. (This meaning is usually used in the construction
`file crunch(ing)' to distinguish it from {number-crunching}.)
See {compress}. 3. n. The character `#'. Used at XEROX
and CMU, among other places. See {{ASCII}}. 4. vt. To squeeze
program source into a minimum-size representation that will still
compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for a
famous program on the BBC micro that crunched BASIC source in order
to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so
the number of characters mattered). {Obfuscated C Contest}
entries are often crunched; see the first example under that
entry.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
Related:
- crunch 1. vi.
To process, usually in a time-consuming or
complicated way.
Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is ... - magic number n.
[Unix/C; common] 1. In source code,
some non-obvious constant whose value is significant... - twiddle: n. 1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, `~'). Also
called `squiggle',
`sqiggle' (sic --- pronounced /skig'l/), and `twaddle'... - hack
[very common] 1. n. Originally, a quick job that
produces what is needed,
but not well. 2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps... - zap: 1. n. Spiciness. 2. vt. To make food spicy. 3.
vt. To make someone `suffer' by making his food... - twiddle n.
1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, ~). Also called
`squiggle',
`sqiggle' (sic -- pronounced /skig'l/), and `twaddle'... - spam vt.,vi.,n.
[from "Monty Python's Flying
Circus"] 1.
To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer... - plumbing: [UNIX] n. Term used for {shell} code, so called
because of the prevalence of `pipelines' that feed the output of
one program to the input of another.
Under UNIX, user utilities can often be implemented... - N: /N/ quant. 1. A large and indeterminate number of objects:
"There were N bugs in that crock!" Also used in its...
