memo function

programming (Or "memoised function") A function that

remembers which arguments it has been called with and the

result returned and, if called with the same arguments again,

returns the result from its memory rather than recalculating

it.

Memo functions were invented by Professor Donald Michie of

Edinburgh University. The idea was further developed by

Robin Popplestone in his Pop2 language long before it was

ever worked into LISP.

This same principle is found at the hardware level in computer

architectures which use a cache to store recently accessed

memory locations.

A Common Lisp package by Marty Hall

[email protected]

.

["'Memo' functions: and machine learning", Donald Michie,

Nature, 218, 19-22, 1968].

(2002-07-02)