hard-coded

jargon (By analogy with "hard-wired") Said of a data value

or behaviour written directly into a program, possibly in

multiple places, where it cannot be easily modified. There

are several alternatives, depending on how often the value is

likely to change. It may be replaced with a compile-time

constant, such as a C "#define" macro, in which case a

change will still require recompilation; or it may be read at

run time from a profile, resource (see de-rezz), or

environment variable that a user can easily modify; or it

may be read as part of the program's input data.

To change something hard-coded requires recompilation (if

using a compiled language of course) but, more seriously, it

requires sufficient understanding of the implementation to be

sure that the change will not introduce inconsistency and

cause the program to fail.

For example, "The line terminator is hard-coded as newline;

who in their right mind would use anything else?"

See magic number.

[Jargon File]

(1999-10-18)