In
mathematics, an expression is called
well-defined or
unambiguous if its definition assigns it a unique interpretation or value. Otherwise, the expression is said to be
not well-defined or
ambiguous. A function is well-defined if it gives the same result when the representation of the input is changed without changing the value of the input. For instance if
f takes real numbers as input, and if
f(0.5) does not equal
f(1/2) then
f is not well-defined (and thus: not a function). The term
well-defined is also used to indicate whether a logical statement is unambiguous.