zero-copy

In computer science, zero-copy refers to techniques that enable data transfer between memory spaces without requiring the CPU to copy the data. By avoiding redundant copying, zero-copy methods minimize CPU usage and memory bandwidth, leading to substantial performance gains. This is crucial for applications demanding high data throughput, such as network communication, file I/O, and multimedia processing.

== Principle == Zero-copy programming techniques can be used when exchanging data within a user space process (i.e. between two or more threads, etc.) and/or between two or more processes (see also producer–consumer problem) and/or when data has to be accessed / copied / moved inside kernel space or between a user space process and kernel space portions of operating systems (OS).