{"id":17385,"date":"2016-08-20T00:59:23","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T00:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/?p=17385"},"modified":"2016-08-20T00:59:23","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T00:59:23","slug":"comp-sci-terminology-what-is-a-buffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/comp-sci-terminology-what-is-a-buffer\/","title":{"rendered":"Comp Sci:  terminology:  what is a buffer?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The tutor finally defines what a buffer means in computer science; he has long wondered.<\/h1>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always had a notion that a <em>buffer<\/em> means an allocation of memory (RAM) devoted to specific purpose (process).  Maybe the process is using the buffer, maybe not &#8211; but it&#8217;s available to the process when needed.  The buffer itself is finite, but probably sufficient for instantaneous purposes.  Overflow goes to disc, which is slower.  That&#8217;s always been my conception of a buffer in comp sci.<\/p>\n<p>Looking up the term, I&#8217;m apparently right &#8211; but not so articulate as Perchik, the contributor to <a href=\"http:\/\/stackoverflow.com\/questions\/648309\/what-does-it-mean-by-buffer\">stackoverflow<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The advantage of a buffer arises from the fact that every call to the data on disc is expensive.  Therefore, rather than call (the OS or other resource) for the data one character at a time, it&#8217;s more efficient to request a large chunk of data once in a while (which is stored in the buffer until needed).<\/p>\n<p>Buffers can be used, for example,  loading graphics, reading files, or downloading files.<\/p>\n<p>Source:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.oracle.com\/javase\/tutorial\/essential\/io\/buffers.html\">docs.oracle.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jack of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\">Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The tutor finally defines what a buffer means in computer science; he has long wondered. I&#8217;ve always had a notion that a buffer means an allocation of memory (RAM) devoted to specific purpose (process). Maybe the process is using the &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/comp-sci-terminology-what-is-a-buffer\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Comp Sci:  terminology:  what is a buffer?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[1825,1826],"class_list":["post-17385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-science","tag-what-is-a-buffer-in-computer-science","tag-why-a-buffer-is-needed-in-computer-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17385"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17399,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17385\/revisions\/17399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oracletutoring.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}