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sanity check: n. [very common] 1. The act of checking a piece of code (or anything else, e.g., a
Usenet posting) for completely stupid mistakes. Implies that the check is
to make sure the author was sane when it was written; e.g., if a piece of
scientific software relied on a particular formula and was giving
unexpected results, one might first look at the nesting of parentheses or
the coding of the formula, as a sanity
check, before looking at the more complex I/O or data structure
manipulation routines, much less the algorithm itself. Compare
reality check. 2. A run-time test, either validating input or ensuring that the
program hasn't screwed up internally (producing an inconsistent value or
state). 3. Conversationally, saying “sanity check” means you
are requesting a check of your assumptions. “Wait a minute, sanity
check, are we talking about the same Kevin here?”
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