trap (redirected from traps)

trap

To respond to a particular condition in a running program; for example, to "trap an interrupt" means to wait for a particular interrupt to occur and then redirect the computer to execute an appropriate routine. An "error trap" tests for an invalid set of data. It then displays the correct error message and bypasses processing that data. A "debugging trap" looks for the execution of a particular instruction in order to immediately stop the program and analyze the status of the system at that moment.

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trap¹

1. a mechanical device or enclosed place or pit in which something, esp an animal, is caught or penned

2. a device that hurls clay pigeons into the air to be fired at by trapshooters

3. Golf an obstacle or hazard, esp a bunker

4. Jazz slang percussion instruments

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trap², traprock

1. any fine-grained often columnar dark igneous rock, esp basalt

2. any rock in which oil or gas has accumulated

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trap [trap]

(aerospace engineering)

That part of a rocket motor that keeps the propellant grain in place.

(civil engineering)

A bend or dip in a soil drain which is always full of water, providing a water seal to prevent odors from entering the building.

(computer science)

An automatic transfer of control of a computer to a known location, this transfer occurring when a specified condition is detected by hardware.

(electronics)

A tuned circuit used in the radio-frequency or intermediate-frequency section of a receiver to reject undesired frequencies; traps in television receiver video circuits keep the sound signal out of the picture channel. Also known as rejector.

wave trap

(engineering)

A sealed passage such as a U-shaped bend in a pipe or pump that prevents the return flow of liquid or gas.

(geology)

oil trap

(mechanical engineering)

A device which reduces the effect of the vapor pressure of oil or mercury on the high-vacuum side of a diffusion pump.

(petrology)

Any dark-colored, fine-grained, nongranitic, hypabyssal or extrusive rock. Also known as trappide; trap rock.

(solid-state physics)

Any irregularity, such as a vacancy, in a semiconductor at which an electron or hole in the conduction band can be caught and trapped until released by thermal agitation. Also known as semiconductor trap.

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1.		trap - A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program.
2.		trap - To cause a trap. "These instructions trap to the monitor." Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the trap. "The monitor traps all input/output instructions." This term is associated with assembler programming ("interrupt" or "exception" is more common among HLL programmers) and appears to be fading into history among programmers as the role of assembler continues to shrink. However, it is still important to computer architects and systems hackers (see system, sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).