<programming> A constant made available to a process, by
inclusion in the executable text. Most modern systems do not
allow texts to modify themselves during execution, so literals
are indeed constant; their value is written at compile-time
and is read-only at run time.
In contrast, values placed in variables or files and accessed
by the process via a symbolic name, can be changed during
execution. This may be an asset. For example, messages can
be given in a choice of languages by placing the translation
in a file.
Literals are used when such modification is not desired. The
name of the file mentioned above (not its content), or a
physical constant such as 3.14159, might be coded as a
literal. Literals can be accessed quickly, a potential
advantage of their use.
(1996-01-23)
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