downpointer

plural downpointers

1. computingA pointer in a hierarchical data structure that points to the node that is down from the current node.

   Except at level zero, the downpointer always points down.

   1969, Information Processing: Proceedings of the IFIP Congress, page 1249

   2 more examples

   […] this data structure differs from the tree […] illustrated in Fig. 1, only by having downpointers replaced by downtrees.

   1985, Society for Industrial, Applied Mathematics, SIAM Journal on Computing, volume 14, page 244

   By using the so-called functional approach to data structures Chazelle [1988] developed a compression scheme to encode the downpointers used by Willard [1985] to reduce further the space requirement.

   2004, Allen B. Tucker, Computer Science Handbook, pages 11–25

2. aeronauticsAn indicator that points toward the ground.

   During one session , the subject used a canopy-mounted downpointer to estimate position in space relative to the ground, and in the other session the subject used a joystick-controlled, inside-out, aircraft attitude indicator.

   1989, Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine, page 492