In Computer Science the term idempotence may have a different meaning depending on the context in which it is applied:
- in imperative programming, a subroutine with side effects is idempotent if multiple calls to the subroutine have the same effect on the system state as a single call, in other words if the function from the system state space to itself associated with the subroutine is idempotent in the mathematical sense given in the definition;
- in functional programming, a pure function is idempotent if it is idempotent in the mathematical sense given in the definition.