Glossary - Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design - page 659

requirements— (1) The specification of what a
program must and must not do. (2) An early
phase of the software development process in
which the program requirements are established.
reserved word— A word that has special mean-
ing in a programming language and cannot be
used for any other purpose.
retirement— The phase of a program's life cycle
in which the program is taken out of active use.
return— A Java reserved word that causes the
flow of program execution to return from a
method to the point of invocation.
return type— The type of value returned from
a method, specified before the method name in
the method declaration. Could be void , which
indicates that no value is returned.
reuse— Using existing software components to
create new ones.
review— The process of critically examining a
design or program to discover errors. There
are many types of review. See also desk check,
walkthrough.
RGB value— A collection of three values that
define a color. Each value represents the con-
tribution of the primary colors red, green, and
blue.
ROM— See read-only memory.
run-time error— A problem that occurs during
program execution that causes the program to
terminate abnormally. See also compile-time
error, logical error, syntax error.
scope— The areas within a program in which
an identifier, such as a variable, can be refer-
enced. See also access.
scroll pane— A graphical user interface con-
tainer that offers a limited view of a component
and provides horizontal and/or vertical scroll
bars to change that view.
SDK— See Software Development Kit.

searching— The process of determining the exis-
tence or location of a target value within a list
of values. See also binary search, linear search.
secondary memory— Hardware storage devices,
such as magnetic disks or tapes, which store
information in a relatively permanent manner.
See also main memory.
seed value— A value used by a random number
generator as a base for the calculations that
produce a pseudo-random number.
selection sort— A sorting algorithm in which
each value, one at a time, is placed in its final,
sorted position. See also insertion sort.
selection statement— A programming construct
that allows a set of statements to be executed
if a particular condition is true. See also if,
switch.
semantics— The interpretation of a program or
programming construct.
sentinel value— A specific value used to indicate
a special condition, such as the end of input.
serialize— The process of converting an object
into a linear series of bytes so it can be saved
to a file or sent across a network. See also
persistence.
service methods— Methods in an object that
are declared with public visibility and define a
service that the object's client can invoke.
shadowing variables— The process of defin-
ing a variable in a subclass that supersedes an
inherited version.
short— A Java reserved word that represents a
primitive integer type, stored using 16 bits in
two's complement format.
sibling— Two items in a tree or hierarchy, such
as a class inheritance hierarchy, that have the
same parent.
sign bit— A bit in a numeric value that represents
the sign (positive or negative) of that value.