haltingprogram

noun

UK /ˈhɔːltɪŋ ˈprəʊɡræm/

US /ˈhɔːltɪŋ ˈproʊɡræm/

A halting program is a computer program that can figure out if another program will ever stop running.

The teacher used a halting program to show which of the small programs would finish and which would run forever.

SYNONYMS

termination checker stopping program decider program halt detector

RELATED WORDS

algorithm computation Turing machine decidability loop

OTHER MEANINGS

2. A program that pauses itself after finishing a task.

The halting program shut down the game once the level was complete.

3. A program designed to stop another program when it misbehaves.

The halting program froze the runaway app before it could crash the computer.

4. A program that checks whether a loop will end.

She wrote a halting program to test if the while loop would ever finish.