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In computer programming, two notions of parameter are commonly used, and are referred to as parameters and arguments—or more formally as a formal parameter and an actual parameter. For example, in the definition of a function such as y = f(x) = x + 2, x is the formal parameter (the parameter) of the defined function.
An output parameter, also known as an out parameter or return parameter, is a parameter used for output, rather than the more usual use for input. Using call by reference parameters, or call by value parameters where the value is a reference, as output parameters is an idiom in some languages, notably C and C++, [ b ] while other languages have ...
For example, in the logarithmic function = (), the base is considered a parameter. Sometimes, subscripts can be used to denote arguments. For example, we can use subscripts to denote the arguments with respect to which partial derivatives are taken. [2]
The Dirac comb of period 2 π, although not strictly a function, is a limiting form of many directional distributions. It is essentially a wrapped Dirac delta function. It represents a discrete probability distribution concentrated at 2 π n — a degenerate distribution — but the notation treats it as if it were a continuous distribution.
A parameter is a quantity (usually a number) which is a part of the input of a problem, and remains constant during the whole solution of this problem. For example, in mechanics the mass and the size of a solid body are parameters for the study of its movement. In computer science, parameter has a different meaning and denotes an argument of a ...
In the case of a single parameter, parametric equations are commonly used to express the trajectory of a moving point, in which case, the parameter if often, but not necessarily, time, and the point describes a curve, called a parametric curve. In the case of two parameters, the point describes a surface, called a parametric surface.
For example, the family of normal distributions has two parameters, the mean and the variance: if those are specified, the distribution is known exactly. The family of chi-squared distributions can be indexed by the number of degrees of freedom : the number of degrees of freedom is a parameter for the distributions, and so the family is thereby ...
For example, in the expression (f(x)-1)/(f(x)+1), the function f cannot be called only once with its value used two times since the two calls may return different results. Moreover, in the few languages which define the order of evaluation of the division operator's operands, the value of x must be fetched again before the second call, since ...