2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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fencepost error
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. 1. [common] A problem with the discrete equivalent of a boundary
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condition, often exhibited in programs by iterative loops. From the
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following problem: If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts 10 feet
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apart, how many posts do you need? (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than
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the obvious 10.) For example, suppose you have a long list or array of
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items, and want to process items m through n ; how many items are there? The
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obvious answer is n - m , but that is off by one; the right answer is n - m
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+ 1. A program that used the obvious formula would have a fencepost error in
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it. See also zeroth and off-by-one error , and note that not all off-by-one
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errors are fencepost errors. The game of Musical Chairs involves a
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catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in N - 1 chairs, but
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it's not a fencepost error. Fencepost errors come from counting things
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rather than the spaces between them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to
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consider whether one should count one or both ends of a row. 2. [rare] An
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error induced by unexpected regularities in input values, which can (for
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instance) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or hash
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table implementation. (The error here involves the difference between
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expected and worst case behaviors of an algorithm.
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