BUFFER OVERFLOW
\bˈʌfəɹ ˌə͡ʊvəflˈə͡ʊ], \bˈʌfəɹ ˌəʊvəflˈəʊ], \b_ˈʌ_f_ə_ɹ ˌəʊ_v_ə_f_l_ˈəʊ]\
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What happens when you try to store more data ina buffer than it can handle. This may be due to a mismatchin the processing rates of the producing and consumingprocesses (see overrun and firehose syndrome), or becausethe buffer is simply too small to hold all the data that mustaccumulate before a piece of it can be processed. Forexample, in a text-processing tool that crunches a line at atime, a short line buffer can result in lossage as inputfrom a long line overflows the buffer and overwrites databeyond it. Good defensive programming would check foroverflow on each character and stop accepting data when thebuffer is full.See also spam, overrun screw.
By Denis Howe
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