paragraph

paragraph

[′par·ə‚graf]

(computer science)

A complete, logical sequence of instructions in the COBOL programming language, required to carry out a definable program or task.

paragraph

In the AIA documents, the first subdivision of an article, identified by two numerals, e.g., 3.3; may be further subdivided into subparagraphs and clauses.

paragraph

(1) In word processing and text editing, a paragraph is a collection of words and sentences that contain an end-of-line character (return, line feed or both) at the end. From the viewpoint of the software, even a single word followed by a return is a paragraph. See CR/LF.

(2) In DOS programming, a 16 byte block. Memory addresses are generated as "segment:offset," where the segment is expressed in paragraphs. As a result of this architecture, there are 4,096 possibilities for expressing each memory byte, a situation that has added a lot of confusion at the debugging level.

To compute an address, the segment register is shifted left four bits, which effectively multiplies it by 16. For example, in the address A000:0100, the A000 becomes A0000, as follows:

     Segment    A0000    655,360
     Offset      0100        256
     Result     A0100    655,616