address
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address
address
[′ad·res]address
(networking)address
(networking)address
(networking)address
(storage, programming)While from a hardware point of view an address is indeed an integer most strongly typed programming languages disallow mixing integers and addresses, and indeed addresses of different data types. This is a fine example for syntactic salt: the compiler could work without it but makes writing bad programs more difficult.
address
(1) The number of a particular RAM or peripheral storage location. Like post office boxes, each byte of RAM and each sector on a drive has its own unique address. Programs are compiled into machine language, which references actual addresses in the computer. See address bus and machine language.(2) As a verb, to manage or work with. For example, "the computer can address 16GB of RAM."
(3) The location of a website or other Internet facility. See URL, IP address and address bar.
Address
in computers, a code specifying the location of information in an electronic computer. True addresses are specific codes corresponding to numbers (of a unit or device) of data storage locations. Relative addresses are numbers of memory locations counted from some specially selected location, which is most often the one in which the instruction containing the relative address is stored. Symbolic addresses are those used for convenience in programming. Relative and symbolic addresses are converted into true addresses either manually, after the entire program has been written and checked, or automatically within the computer by special programs. In the computer, the address is converted by a decoder into a system of control signals which give access to the storage locations corresponding to the given address. Most computers have capabilities for circuit conversion of the address while an instruction is in the process of being carried out. An address arriving at a decoder is called an input address, and an address extracted from the computer memory as part of an instruction is called an output address, or simply an address.