No Operation

Why Trust Techopedia

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.

Advertisements

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.”

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret 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 IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.