[scientific computing] Said of
a sequence of memory reads and writes to addresses, each of which
is separated from the last by a constant interval called the
`stride length'. These can be a worst-case access pattern for
the standard memory-caching schemes when the stride length is a
multiple of the cache line size. Strided references are often
generated by loops through an array, and (if your data is large
enough that access-time is significant) it can be worthwhile to
tune for better locality by inverting double loops or by partially
unrolling the outer loop of a loop nest. This usage is borderline
techspeak; the related term `memory stride' is definitely
techspeak.
