strided

/str:'d*d/ (scientific computing) Said of a sequence of memory

reads and writes to addresses, each of which is separated from

the last by a constant interval called "the stride length", or

just "the stride". These can be a worst-case access pattern

for cache schemes when the stride length is a multiple of

the cache line size.

Strided references are often generated by loops through an

array, and (if the data is large enough that access-time is

significant) it can be worthwhile to tune for better locality

by inverting double loops or by partially unrolling the outer

loop of a loop nest.

[Jargon File]

(1994-12-21)