- dangling pointer
-
A pointer pointing to a previously meaningful location that is no longer meaningful; usually a result of a pointer pointing to an object that is deallocated without resetting the value of the pointer.
- dangling reference
-
A reference to an object that no longer exists.
- data abstraction
-
A principle by which implementation details of an abstract data type are hidden so that the user manipulates only the well-defined abstract properties of abstract data types.
- data hiding
-
A synonym for information hiding.
- data structure
-
A collection of simpler data items linked through explicit links or through implicit links. (
See also linked data structure.
- declaration(of an object)
-
A C/C++ construct informing the compiler that a particular symbol represents an object of a given type; no creation is involved.
- default constructor
-
An explicit constructor with no arguments, or an implicit constructor provided by the compiler.
- definition(of an object)
-
A C/C++ construct that causes the compiler to create an object out of "raw" memory.
- delete
-
A C++ operator to delete a memory segment previously dynamically allocated by the operator new ; unlike the C allocators , delete can be overloaded to provide a custom-made or debugging version, and errors can be handled through exceptions.
- delete[]
-
A C++ operator to delete a memory segment previously dynamically allocated by the operator new[] ; unlike the C allocators, delete[] can be overloaded to provide a custom-made or debugging version, and errors can be handled through exceptions.
- dereference operator *
-
A synonym for indirection operator.
- derived class
-
A class extending another class; a synonym for subclass.
- destructor
-
A special method of each class that is automatically used when an object of the class is being destroyed (either implicitly when a function in which it is local is terminating, or explicitly when an object is being deallocated using the operator delete ).
- distributed computing
-
Setup of a computing environment in which data and/or code used by a program may physically reside on other machines of the network yet be accessible for the program as if they resided on the same machine; in particular, this enables many programs running on different machines to cooperate toward the same goal.
- dynamic data
-
Data stored in dynamically allocated memory; also, a section in the program address space for dynamically allocated memory.
- dynamic memory allocation
-
The process of requesting and obtaining additional memory segments during the execution of a program.
- dynamic memory deallocation
-
The process of "returning" previously allocated dynamic memory to the process memory manager.
- dynamicmulti-dimensionalarray
-
A dynamically created data structure that allows access through multiple indexes with the same syntax as that used for static multi-dimensional arrays.
- dynamic one-dimensional array
-
An array whose segment to hold the array items has been allocated dynamically.