Using OR as a verb

Subject: Using OR as a verb
From: Dave Neufeld <Dave_Neufeld -at- SPECTRUMSIGNAL -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:48:28 -0700

How do you describe the of logically operators (such as OR and AND) in
documentation where the tendency is to use them as verbs. "Joe Audience"
is a specialized electrical or computer engineer working with DSP code.
For example:

<begin example>
To enable channel 0 DMA transfers using the DMA done interrupt, the
pDmaModeFlags variable is built by a logical OR of the defined flags as
shown in the following piece of C/C++ source code.
DmaModeFlags = (PLX9060_DMA0MODE_LBURST_EN
| PLX9060_DMA0MODE_BTERM_EN
| PLX9060_DMA0MODE_RDY_EN
| PLX9060_DMA0MODE_LBUSWIDTH32
| PLX9060_DMA0MODE_DONE_INT_EN );
<end example>

The audience seems quite familiar with using terms such as "ORing",
"ORed", and so on; but I haven't seen anything definitive on usage. I've
also come across this usage in hardware in terms of "wire OR'd"
connections. My H/W and S/W development background allow me to
understand these terms, but I just haven't seen them in print. Is there
a way to use these as a verb? If so, then how? (OR'd, or ORed?)

David Neufeld
=======================================================================

Technical Publications
dave_neufeld -at- spectrumsignal -dot- com
http:\\www.spectrumsignal.com

"no matter where you go..... there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai




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