Meaning & use

idempotent

adjective·Advanced

Last updated

Describing an operation that produces the same result no matter how many times it is applied.

See it in a sentence

A well-designed API endpoint for deleting a file should be idempotent, so repeating the request causes no extra harm.

Multiplying a number by one is an idempotent operation.

A note on using this word

Common in computer science and mathematics; the key idea is that repeating the action changes nothing beyond the first application.

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