circular buffer

1 definition found

circular buffer - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  circular buffer
  
     <programming> An area of memory used to store a continuous
     stream of data by starting again at the beginning of the
     buffer after reaching the end.  A circular buffer is usually
     written by one process and read by another.  Separate read and
     write pointers are maintained.  These are not allowed to
     pass each other otherwise either unread data would be
     overwritten or invalid data would be read.
  
     A circuit may implement a hardware circular buffer.
  
     (2000-06-17)