Circular buffer: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:44, 13 November 2024

Revision as of 03:01, 1 December 2024

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[[Image:Circular buffer.svg|thumb|200px|A ring showing, conceptually, a circular buffer. This visually shows that the buffer has no real end and it can loop around the buffer. However, since memory is never physically created as a ring, a linear representation is generally used as is done below.]]

In [[computer science]], a '''circular buffer ''', '''circular queue''', '''cyclic buffer''' or '''ring buffer''' is a [[data structure]] that uses a single, fixed-size [[buffer (computer science)|buffer]] as if it were connected end-to-end. This structure lends itself easily to buffering [[data stream]]s.<ref>{{citation|title=Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces [Chapter: Condition Variables, figure 30.13]|url=http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/threads-cv.pdf|

publisher=Arpaci-Dusseau Books|date=2014|first1=Remzi H.|last1=Arpaci-Dusseau|first2=Andrea C.|last2=Arpaci-Dusseau}}</ref> There were early circular buffer implementations in hardware.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hartl|first1=Johann|title=Impulswiederholer - Telephone Exchange (video)|date=17 October 2011 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xI9tXi-UNs|publisher=Youtube|access-date=15 December 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Fraser|first1=Alexander Gibson|title=US patent 3979733 Digital data communications system packet switch|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US3979733A/en|publisher=US States Patent|access-date=15 December 2021}}</ref>