fencing

n. art of sword fighting; fences; material for constructing fences; use of witty remarks to avoid answering direct questions

v. enclose within a fence or other barrier; separate with a fence or other barrier; protect, guard; fight with swords; practice the sport of fencing; evade a question, respond in a vague manner; sell stolen goods; receive stolen goods

This article is about the sport, which is distinguished from stage fencing and academic fencing (mensur). For fences and the process of erecting them, see fence. For other uses, see fence (disambiguation).In the broadest possible sense, fencing is the art of armed combat involving cutting, stabbing, or bludgeoning weapons directly manipulated by hand, rather than shot, thrown or positioned (such as caltrops). Example weapons include swords, knives, pikes, bayonets, batons, clubs, and similar. In contemporary common usage, 'fencing' tends to refer specifically to European schools of swordsmanship and to the modern Olympic sport that has evolved out of them.
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1. A sequence of one or more distinguished (out-of-band) characters (or other data items), used to delimit a piece of data intended to be treated as a unit (the computer-science literature calls this a "sentinel"). The NUL (ASCII 0000000) character that terminates strings in C is a fence. Hex FF is also (though slightly less frequently) used this way. See zigamorph.
2. An extra data value inserted in an array or other data structure in order to allow some normal test on the array's contents also to function as a termination test. For example, a highly optimised routine for finding a value in an array might artificially place a copy of the value to be searched for after the last slot of the array, thus allowing the main search loop to search for the value without having to check at each pass whether the end of the array had been reached.
3. [among users of optimising compilers] Any technique, usually exploiting knowledge about the compiler, that blocks certain optimisations. Used when explicit mechanisms are not available or are overkill. Typically a hack: "I call a dummy procedure there to force a flush of the optimiser's register-colouring info" can be expressed by the shorter "That's a fence procedure".
[Jargon File]
(1999-01-08)

Noun
1. a barrier that serves to enclose an area
(synonym) fence
(hypernym) barrier
(hyponym) backstop
(part-holonym) fence line
(derivation) fence, fence in
2. material for building fences
(synonym) fencing material
(hypernym) building material
3. the art or sport of fighting with swords (especially the use of foils or epees or sabres to score points under a set of rules)
(hypernym) fight, fighting, combat, scrap
(derivation) fence

Noun
1. a barrier that serves to enclose an area
(synonym) fencing
(hypernym) barrier
(hyponym) backstop
(part-holonym) fence line
(derivation) fence in
2. a dealer in stolen property
(hypernym) trader, bargainer, dealer, monger
(classification) colloquialism
Verb
1. enclose with a fence; "we fenced in our yard"
(synonym) fence in
(hypernym) enclose, inclose, shut in
(derivation) fencing
2. receive stolen goods
(hypernym) receive, have
3. fight with fencing swords
(hypernym) fight, struggle
(hyponym) parry, block, deflect
(derivation) fencer, swordsman
4. surround with a wall in order to fortify
(synonym) wall, palisade, fence in, surround
(hypernym) protect
(hyponym) stockade
(derivation) fencing
5. have an argument about something
(synonym) argue, contend, debate
(hypernym) converse, discourse
(hyponym) stickle
(entail) disagree, differ, dissent, take issue