Printer Friendly
Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary
3,590,617,606 visitors served.
forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters
?
Dictionary/
thesaurus
Medical
dictionary
Legal
dictionary
Financial
dictionary
Acronyms
 
Idioms
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
encyclopedia
?

peek

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia 0.03 sec.
peek [pēk]
(computer science)
An instruction that causes the contents of a specific storage location in a computer to be displayed.

PEEK - The command in most microcomputer BASICs for reading memory contents (a byte) at an absolute address. POKE is the corresponding command to write a value to an absolute address.

This is often extended to mean the corresponding constructs in any High Level Language.

Much hacking on small microcomputers without MMUs consists of "peek"ing around memory, more or less at random, to find the location where the system keeps interesting stuff. Long (and variably accurate) lists of such addresses for various computers circulate (see interrupt list). The results of "poke"s at these addresses may be highly useful, mildly amusing, useless but neat, or total lossage (see killer poke).

Since a real operating system provides useful, higher-level services for the tasks commonly performed with peeks and pokes on micros, and real languages tend not to encourage low-level memory groveling, a question like "How do I do a peek in C?" is diagnostic of the newbie. Of course, operating system kernels often have to do exactly this; a real C hacker would unhesitatingly, if unportably, assign an absolute address to a pointer variable and indirect through it.


How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content.
?Page tools
Printer friendly
Cite / link
Feedback
Mentioned in?  References in classic literature?   Encyclopedia browser?   Full browser?
No references found
 
Now your hair is almost done, and pretty quick I'm going to leave you just a minute; and you must promise--promise--PROMISE not to stir nor peek, even, till I come back.
He would peek into the curtained windows, or, climbing upon the roof, peer down the black depths of the chimney in vain endeavor to solve the unknown wonders that lay within those strong walls.
As he sat propped up in a big chair by Beth's sofa, with the other three close by, and Hannah popping in her head now and then `to peek at the dear man', nothing seemed needed to complete their happiness.
 
 
 
Encyclopedia
?

Terms of Use | Privacy policy | Feedback | Copyright © 2012 Farlex, Inc.
Disclaimer
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.