literal

adj 1: being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of

something; "her actual motive"; "a literal solitude

like a desert"- G.K.Chesterton; "a genuine dilemma"

[syn: {actual}, {genuine}, {real}]

2: without interpretation or embellishment; "a literal

translation of the scene before him"

3: limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text; "a

literal translation" [ant: {figurative}]

4: lacking stylistic embellishment; "a literal description";

"wrote good but plain prose"; "a plain unadorned account

of the coronation"; "a forthright unembellished style"

[syn: {plain}, {unembellished}]

5: of the clearest kind; usually used for emphasis; "it's the

literal truth"; "a matter of investment, pure and simple"

[syn: {pure and simple}]

6: (of a translation) corresponding word for word with the

original; "literal translation of the article"; "an

awkward word-for-word translation" [syn: {word-for-word}]

n : a mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical

failures of some kind [syn: {misprint}, {erratum}, {typographical

error}, {typo}, {literal error}]

literal

A constant made available to a process, by

inclusion in the executable text. Most modern systems do not

allow texts to modify themselves during execution, so literals

are indeed constant; their value is written at compile-time

and is read-only at run-time.

In contrast, values placed in variables or files and accessed

by the process via a symbolic name, can be changed during

execution. This may be an asset. For example, messages can

be given in a choice of languages by placing the translation

in a file.

Literals are used when such modification is not desired. The

name of the file mentioned above (not its content), or a

physical constant such as 3.14159, might be coded as a

literal. Literals can be accessed quickly, a potential

advantage of their use.

(1996-01-23)