side effect

n 1: a secondary and usually adverse effect of a drug or therapy;

"severe headaches are one of the side effects of the

drug"

2: any unwanted secondary effect

side-effect

A language construct that modifies the state of the system.

The most common side-effects are {assignment}, input and

output. A language without side-effects is

{purely-functional} - execution consists of the evaluation of

an expression and all subexpressions are {referentially

transparent}.

(1995-02-16)