Abort (computing)

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Template:Wiktionarypar In a computer or data transmission system, to abort means to terminate, usually in a controlled manner, a processing activity because it is impossible or undesirable for the activity to proceed. Such an action may be accompanied by diagonstic information on the aborted process.

In addition to being a verb, abort also has two noun senses. In the most general case, the event of aborting can be referred to as an abort. Sometimes the event of aborting can be given a special name, as in the case of an abort involving a Unix kernel where it is known as a "panic". Specifically in the context of data transmission, an abort is a function invoked by a sending station to cause the recipient to discard or ignore all bit sequences transmitted by the sender since the preceding flag sequence.

References

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.

See also