dereference
English · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
dereference
- /dɪˈɹɛfɹəns/ UK
verb dereferences · dereferencing · dereferenced
- To access the value or object located in a memory location addressed by a pointer or another value interpreted as such; to access a value being referenced by something else. Attempting to dereference a null pointer often results in a crash.
- To operate on the file or directory pointed to by a symbolic link, rather than on the link itself. With the find command, any symbolic links appearing after -follow will be dereferenced.
- To dissolve a symbolic link by replacing it with a copy of its target.
noun dereferences
- The act by which something is dereferenced. Either each dereference must use a complicated DCAS protocol, or each pointer must include a version number that is managed on each modification and checked on each dereference, or storage management must be tightly coupled […]
Translations
Every language
verb access something to which a pointer or another value points
| Español | desreferenciar |
|---|---|
| Português | desreferenciar |
| Français | déréférencer |
| Deutsch | dereferenzieren |
| Русский | разыменовывать razymenovyvatʹ |
verb operate on the target of a symbolic link
| Français | déréférencer |
|---|
Talk about this word "dereference." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/dereference. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. dereference. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/dereference "dereference." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/dereference.
Cite this
MLA
APA
Chicago
BibTeX
@misc{dereference_2026,
title = {dereference},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/dereference},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
