INTERRUPT

Interrupt

In systems programming, an interrupt is a signal to the processor emitted by hardware or software indicating an event that needs immediate attention. An interrupt alerts the processor to a high-priority condition requiring the interruption of the current code the processor is executing, the current thread. The processor responds by suspending its current activities, saving its state, and executing a small program called an interrupt handler to deal with the event. This interruption is temporary, and after the interrupt handler finishes, the processor resumes execution of the previous thread. There are two types of interrupts:

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interrupt

Noun

  1. An event that causes a computer to temporarily cease what it was doing and attend to a condition
    The interrupt caused the packet handler routine to run.

Verb

  1. To disturb or halt an ongoing process or action by interfering suddenly.
  2. To divide; to separate; to break the monotony of.
    The evenness of the road was not interrupted by a single hill.
  3. To assert to a computer that an exceptional condition must be handled.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: interrupt
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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