break

Technology Dictionary -> break

break



1. To cause to be broken (in any sense). "Your latest patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands."

2. (Of a program) To stop temporarily, so that it may debugged. The place where it stops is a "breakpoint".

3. To send an EIA-232 break (two character widths of line high) over a serial line.

4. [Unix] To strike whatever key currently causes the tty driver to send SIGINT to the current process. Normally, break, delete or control-C does this.

5. "break break" may be said to interrupt a conversation (this is an example of verb doubling). This usage comes from radio communications, which in turn probably came from landline telegraph/teleprinter usage, as badly abused in the Citizen's Band craze a few years ago.

6. pipeline break.

7. break statement.

[Jargon File]

(2004-03-24)


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