Singleton variable
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009) |
 |
This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (February 2009) |
In computer programming a singleton variable is a variable that is referred to only once.
Examples of where a variable might only be referenced once is as a dummy argument in a function call, or when its address is assigned to another variable which subsequently accesses its allocated storage.
Singleton variables sometimes occur because a mistake has been made – such as assigning a value to a variable and forgetting to use it later, or mistyping one instance of the variable name. Some compilers and lint-like tools flag occurrences of singleton variables.
