meaning of buffer

1. An elastic apparatus or fender, for deadening the jar caused by the collision of bodies; as, a buffer at the end of a railroad car.
2. A pad or cushion forming the end of a fender, which receives the blow; -- sometimes called buffing apparatus.
3. One who polishes with a buff.
4. A wheel for buffing; a buff.
5. A good-humored, slow-witted fellow; -- usually said of an elderly man.
6. buffer 1. An area of memory used for storing messages. Typically, a buffer will have other attributes such as an input pointer where new data will be written into the buffer, and output pointer where the next item will be read from and/or a count of the space used or free. Buffers are used to decouple processes so that the reader and writer may operate at different speeds or on different sized blocks of data. There are many different algorithms for using buffers, e. g. first-in first-out FIFO or shelf, last-in first-out LIFO or stack, double buffering allowing one buffer to be read while the other is being written, cyclic buffer reading or writing past the end wraps around to the beginning. 2. An electronic device to provide compatibility between two signals, e. g. changing voltage levels or current capability. buffered write-through management> A variation of write-through where the cache uses a "write buffer" to hold data being written back to main memory. This frees the cache to service read requests while the write is taking place. There is usually only one stage of buffering so subsequent writes must wait until the first is complete. Most accesses are reads so buffered write-through is only useful for very slow main memory.

Related Words

buffer | buffer overflow | bufferhead |

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