No Operation

What Does No Operation Mean?

A no operation or “no-op” instruction in an assembly language
is an instruction that does not implement any operation. IT pros or others
might refer to this as a blank instruction or placeholder.

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Techopedia Explains No Operation

In some cases, no-op instructions are used for timing purposes. They can also help to deal with certain memory issues, or work in conjunction with a group of other instructions to facilitate some kind of end result. No-op instructions may be used for pipeline synchronization or to delay some type of CPU activity.

In addition, in IT slang, people might talk about someone who is useless or brings nothing to a project as a “no-op.”

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…