Instance (computer science)
Concrete manifestation of an element (type) in computer science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In computer science, an instance or token (from metalogic and metamathematics) is a specific occurrence of a software element that is based on a type definition.[1]: 1.3.2 When created, an occurrence is said to have been instantiated, and both the creation process and the result of creation are called instantiation.
Examples
- Chat AI instance
- In chat-based AI systems, an assistant can be invoked across many independent conversation sessions (often called a thread), each with its own message history. A specific execution of the assistant over that session may be represented as a run (an execution on a thread).[2][3]
- Class instance
- In object-oriented programming, an object created from a class type. Each instance of a class shares the class-defined structure and behavior but has its own identity and state.[4][5]
- Procedural instance
- In some contexts (including Simula), each procedure call can be viewed as an instance of that procedure—an activation with its own parameters and local variables.[1]: 1.3.2
- Computer instance
- In cloud computing and virtualization, an instance commonly refers to a provisioned virtual machine or virtual server with an allocated combination of compute, memory, network, and storage resources.[6][7]
- Polygonal model
- In computer graphics, a model may be instanced so it can be drawn multiple times with different transforms and parameters, improving performance by reusing shared geometry data.[8]