Glossary Glossary
loop unwindingIt is when a compiler, instead of generating loop code forniterations, generates justncopies of the loop
body, in order to get rid of the instructions for loop maintenance. 176
name manglingused at least in C++, where the compiler needs to encode the name of class, method and argument types in
one string, which will become the internal name of the function. You can read more about it here:51.1.1 on page 522.
523 , 626 , 627
NaNnot a number: a special cases for floating point numbers, usually signaling about errors. 222 , 244 , 868
NEONAKA“Advanced SIMD”—SIMDfrom ARM. 899
NOP“no operation”, idle instruction. 646
NTAPIAPIavailable only in the Windows NT line. Largely not documented by Microsoft. 710
PDB(Win32) Debugging information file, usually just function names, but sometimes also function arguments and local
variables names. 625 , 674 , 710 , 711 , 718 , 722 , 791
POKEBASIC language instruction for writing a byte at a specific address. 646
register allocatorThe part of the compiler that assigns CPU registers to local variables. 190 , 292 , 404
reverse engineeringact of understanding how the thing works, sometimes in order to clone it.v, 893
security cookieA random value, different at each execution. You can read more about it here:18.3 on page 268. 691
stack frameA part of the stack that contains information specific to the current function: local variables, function arguments,
RA, etc. 60 , 90 , 448 , 691
stdoutstandard output. 15 , 27 , 145
thunk functionTiny function with a single role: call another function. 16 , 376 , 732 , 740
tracerMy own simple debugging tool. You can read more about it here:70.3 on page 703. 178 – 180 , 630 , 640 , 644 , 687 ,
696 , 792 , 799 , 803 , 805 , 857
user modeA restricted CPU mode in which it all application software code is executed. cf.kernel mode. 747 , 913
Windows NTWindows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8. 278 , 402 , 575 , 633 , 662 , 673 , 700 , 812 , 893
worddata type fitting inGPR. In the computers older than PCs, the memory size was often measured in words rather than
bytes. 546
xoringoften used in the English language, which implying applying theXORoperation. 691 , 743 , 745