User:Swestlake/Dump (Computer science)

Dump (Computer science)

A dump in computer science is the storage operation for transferring information of one device to another. The particular device associated with a dump depends on the state of a computer's operating system, in order to attribute the dump to a specific type.

The 'storage dump' is an ambiguous term which reflects the traditional Dump (program) program article and a byte-to-byte cloning operation. The terminology 'storage dump' in it's latter meaning is reflected in it's separate article. Computer literature lack elaborating the difference between these two meanings though they have been used in both contexts and are dinstinctively treated across a spectrum of references.

Dumps in Computer Science
These dumps do not concern transferring exclusively between secondary storage devices. The storage of any of these form of dumps are largely targetted for display or to a file.
 * Database dump
 * Hex dump
 * Memory dump
 * Storage dump (see below)

Storage dump disambiguation
These dumps concern transferring between devices but exclusively relating to secondary storage for both source and target. The 'device imaging' storage dump is largely distinguished from the dump program, in that 'device imaging' always is a strict byte-to-byte cloning below any abstract data layers (such as a filesystem). The 'dump program' on the other hand relies on a computer filesystem to perform it's source to target operation. These dumps are distinguished from the other types by the enforced requirement that either the source or target of the operation is directly referenced as a secondary storage device at a very fine level(below any abstract layer).


 * Storage Dump (Dump program)
 * Storage Dump (Secondary storage cloning)