Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
idempotent

idempotent

1 9.9
Not change when you do it more than once, often for functions or operations
  • adjective
  • /ˌaɪdɛmˈpoʊtənt/
  • Specialized
: idempotente

Examples

  • But B is idempotent and hence PSD.

    Academic text (1990)

  • CCN packets are idempotent, self-identifying, and self-authenticating, so each packet is potentially useful to many consumers (e.g., many hosts reading the same newspaper or watching the same YouTube video).

    Academic text (2012)

  • In a RESTful API, a DELETE request is considered idempotent if sending it multiple times has the same effect as sending it once.

  • It is important for operations in the database to be idempotent so that they do not alter the state after the first execution.

  • The function should be idempotent to ensure that calling it several times with the same input produces the same result.

Surface Forms

idempotent positive

Etymology

Idempotent comes from Latin parts idem meaning 'same' and potent meaning 'power'. So an idempotent action has the same effect if you do it again, which is why in math and computing it does not change after being applied more than once.