consubstantiation

n : the High-Church Anglican doctrine that after the

consecration of the Eucharist the substance of the body

and blood of Christ coexists with the substance of the

consecrated bread and wine

instantiation

Producing a more defined version of some object

by replacing variables with values (or other variables).

1. In {object-oriented programming}, producing a particular

{object} from its {class template}. This involves allocation

of a structure with the types specified by the template, and

initialisation of {instance variable}s with either default

values or those provided by the class's {constructor}

function.

2. In {unification}, (as used in {logic programming}, {type

checking} and {type inference}), binding a {logic variable}

({type variable}) to some value (type).

(1995-03-28)