Editing Memoization (section)

{{Short description|Software programming optimization technique}}
{{distinguish|Memorization}}
In [[computing]], '''memoization''' or '''memoisation''' is an [[Optimization (computer science)|optimization]] technique used primarily to speed up [[computer programs]] by storing the results of expensive [[Subroutine|function calls]] to [[Pure_function|pure functions]] and returning the cached result when the same inputs occur again.  Memoization has also been used in other contexts (and for purposes other than speed gains), such as in simple [[mutual recursion|mutually recursive]] descent parsing.<ref name="Norvig1991">{{cite journal |last=Norvig |first=Peter |title=Techniques for Automatic Memoization with Applications to Context-Free Parsing |journal=Computational Linguistics |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=91–98 |year=1991 |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/971738.971743 }}</ref> It is a type of [[Cache (computing)|caching]], distinct from other forms of caching such as [[Buffer (computer science)|buffering]] and [[Page replacement algorithm|page replacement]]. In the context of some [[logic programming]] languages, memoization is also known as [[tabling]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Warren |first=David S. |date=1992-03-01 |title=Memoing for logic programs |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=93–111 |doi=10.1145/131295.131299 |issn=0001-0782|doi-access=free }}</ref>