Buzz

/buzz/

vi. 1. Of a program, to run with no indication of progress and perhaps without guarantee of ever finishing; esp. said of programs thought to be executing tight loops of code. A program that is buzzing appears to be catatonic, but you never get out of catatonia, while a buzzing loop may eventually end of its own accord.

"The program buzzes for about 10 seconds trying to sort all the names into order."

See spin; see also grovel.

2. [ETA Systems] To test a wire or printed circuit trace for continuity by applying an AC rather than DC signal. Some wire faults will pass DC tests but fail a buzz test.

3. To process an array or list in sequence, doing the same thing to each element.

"This loop buzzes through the tz array looking for a terminator type."