What is a 'thunk'?

Question

I\'ve seen it used in programming (specifically in the C++ domain) and have no idea what it is. Presumably it is a design pattern, but I could be wrong. Can anyone give a go

Answer 1

The term thunk originally referred to the mechanism used by the Royal Radar Establishment implementation of pass-by-name in their Algol60 compiler. In general it refers to any way to induce dynamic behavior when referencing an apparently static object. The term was invented by Brian Wichmann, who when asked to explain pass-by-name said "Well you go out to load the value from memory and then suddenly - thunk - there you are evaluating an expression."

Thunks have been put in hardware (cf. KDF9, Burroughs mainframes). There are several ways to implement them in software, all very machine, language and compiler specific.

The term has come to be generalized beyond pass-by-name, to include any situation in which an apparently or nominally static data reference induces dynamic behavior. Related terms include "trampoline" and "future".