Truncation is the process of shortening or cutting something in part. In computer science, it is often used to refer to types of data or variables, such as floating point numbers and strings. The trunc() function truncates the value after the decimal and returns only the integer part. Truncation in IT is used to reduce the size of an object, such as a number or a text string, and save resources.
It is similar to the mathematical process of “rounding”, except that in some forms of truncation, the number can be automatically rounded down by cutting off the additional decimal digits. In operating systems or programming languages, truncate is used as a command or function to limit the size of a field, data flow, or file. A code truncation operation can take a number with several digits to the left of the decimal point and truncate that number to an integer. Strings can also be truncated, which can be useful if a string exceeds the maximum character limit for a given application.
When compiling code, if there are a large number of entries to an array, the result may become strange and negative and the compiler may show 'truncated' in front of the last entry. Additionally, when information is sent or saved, it may be truncated to the first 255 characters and no additional characters are taken into account. Truncation is also performed in other types of user technologies, such as email platforms where a user can view that a given email has been “truncated”.
