In
computing, a
segmentation fault (often shortened to
segfault) or
access violation is a
fault raised by hardware with
memory protection, notifying an
operating system (OS) about a memory access violation; on
x86 computers this is a form of
general protection fault. The OS
kernel will in response usually perform some corrective action, generally passing the fault on to the offending
process by sending the process a
signal. Processes can in some cases install a custom signal handler, allowing them to recover on their own, but otherwise the OS default signal handler is used, generally causing
abnormal termination of the process (a program
crash), and sometimes a
core dump.