compact

adj 1: closely and firmly united or packed together; "compact

soil"; "compact clusters of flowers" [ant: {loose}]

2: closely crowded together; "a compact shopping center"; "a

dense population"; "thick crowds" [syn: {dense}, {thick}]

3: heavy and compact in form or stature; "a wrestler of compact

build"; "he was tall and heavyset"; "stocky legs"; "a

thick middle-aged man"; "a thickset young man" [syn: {heavyset},

{stocky}, {thick}, {thickset}]

4: briefly giving the gist of something; "a short and

compendious book"; "a compact style is brief and pithy";

"succinct comparisons"; "a summary formulation of a

wide-ranging subject" [syn: {compendious}, {succinct}, {summary}]

n 1: a small cosmetics case with a mirror; to be carried in a

woman's purse [syn: {powder compact}]

2: a signed written agreement between two or more parties

(nations) to perform some action [syn: {covenant}, {concordat}]

3: a small and economical car [syn: {compact car}]

v 1: compress into a wad; "wad paper into the box" [syn: {pack},

{bundle}, {wad}]

2: make more compact by or as if by pressing; "compress the

data" [syn: {compress}, {pack together}]

3: squeeze or press together; "she compressed her lips" [syn: {compress},

{constrict}, {squeeze}, {contract}, {press}]

compact

1. (Or "finite", "isolated") In {domain theory}, an element d

of a {cpo} D is compact if and only if, for any {chain} S, a

subset of D,

d <◦ lub S ◦> there exists s in S such that d <◦ s.

I.e. you always reach d (or better) after a finite number of

steps up the chain.

("<◦" is written in {LaTeX} as {\sqsubseteq}).

[{Jargon File}]

(1995-01-13)

2. Of a design, describes the valuable property that it can

all be apprehended at once in one's head. This generally

means the thing created from the design can be used with

greater facility and fewer errors than an equivalent tool that

is not compact. Compactness does not imply triviality or lack

of power; for example, {C} is compact and {Fortran} is not,

but C is more powerful than Fortran. Designs become

non-compact through accreting {feature}s and {cruft} that

don't merge cleanly into the overall design scheme (thus, some

fans of {Classic C} maintain that {ANSI C} is no longer

compact).

(1995-01-13)