---
title: Glossary
---

# Glossary

A running list of computer science, mathematical, graph theory, and build system terms and jargon used in the documentation.

## Topological Order

A fancy term for "dependency first" order. So if A depends on B and B depends on C, then topological order is C, B, A.

In computer science, a topological sort or topological ordering of a directed graph is a linear ordering of its vertices such that for every directed edge uv from vertex u to vertex v, u comes before v in the ordering.
A topological ordering is possible if and only if the graph has no directed cycles, that is, if it is a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Any DAG has at least one topological ordering, and algorithms are known for constructing a topological ordering of any DAG in linear time.

[Learn More](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_sorting)

## Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)

In mathematics, particularly graph theory, and computer science, a directed acyclic graph is a directed graph with no directed cycles. That is, it consists of vertices and edges (also called arcs), with each edge directed from one vertex to another, such that following those directions will never form a closed loop. A directed graph is a DAG if and only if it can be topologically ordered, by arranging the vertices as a linear ordering that is consistent with all edge directions. DAGs have numerous scientific and computational applications, ranging from biology (evolution, family trees, epidemiology) to sociology (citation networks) to computation (scheduling).

![DAG diagram](/docs/dag-diagram.svg)

[Learn more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_graph)

## Hash function

A hash function is any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values. The values returned by a hash function are called hash values, hash codes, digests, or simply hashes.

[Learn more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function)

## Remote Caching

A remote cache is used by a team of developers and/or a continuous integration (CI) system to share build outputs. If your build is reproducible, the outputs from one machine can be safely reused on another machine, which can make builds significantly faster.
