Circular buffer

A ring showing, conceptually, a circular buffer. This visually shows that the buffer has no real end and it can loop around the buffer. However, since memory is never physically created as a ring, a linear representation is generally used as is done below.

In computer science, a circular buffer, circular queue, cyclic buffer or ring buffer is a data structure that uses a single, fixed-size buffer as if it were connected end-to-end. This structure lends itself easily to buffering data streams.[1] There were early circular buffer implementations in hardware.[2][3]

  1. ^ Arpaci-Dusseau, Remzi H.; Arpaci-Dusseau, Andrea C. (2014), Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces [Chapter: Condition Variables, figure 30.13] (PDF), Arpaci-Dusseau Books
  2. ^ Hartl, Johann (17 October 2011). "Impulswiederholer - Telephone Exchange (video)". Youtube. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  3. ^ Fraser, Alexander Gibson. "US patent 3979733 Digital data communications system packet switch". US States Patent. Retrieved 15 December 2021.