ENGLISH
REFERENCE

racy

adj.
C1 Advanced US //ˈɹeɪsi// UK //ɹˈeɪsi// racy

adj. describing code that has a race condition, where two or more parts of a program try to change the same data at the same time. This can cause the program to behave in an unexpected or dangerous way.

adj. characterised by a race condition, where the outcome of a program depends on the relative timing of events. Often used in the context of concurrent or parallel programming to describe code that is not thread-safe.


SIMPLE

The developer found a racy condition in the login system.

CONTEXTUAL

Because the two threads are accessing the same memory address without a lock, the code is racy and may crash under heavy load.

COMPLEX

While the single-threaded version of the algorithm worked perfectly, the multi-threaded implementation was racy, leading to inconsistent data states that were difficult to reproduce during testing.

Synonyms
Origin

From race (“having a characteristic taste (of wines, fruits, etc.)”) + -y.

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