módosíthatatlan

Módosíthatatlan is a Hungarian adjective meaning “unable to be modified,” used to describe things that cannot be changed once created. The term appears in fields such as mathematics, philosophy, and computer science to denote a property or object that remains fixed.

Etymology: the word is formed from the verb módosítani (to modify) with the suffix -hatatlan, which marks impossibility. The related noun form is módosíthatatlanság.

In mathematics and logic, a módosíthatatlan element refers to a value or structure whose state cannot be altered by subsequent operations, or whose essential properties remain invariant under certain transformations.

In computer science, immutability is a design principle whereby data objects cannot be changed after creation. Many programming languages provide immutable data types; for example, strings and sometimes numbers are immutable in several languages, while other data structures such as lists or maps may be mutable. Operations on immutable objects typically yield new objects rather than modifying existing ones.

Benefits of immutability include easier reasoning about code, safer concurrent execution, and reliable hashing, since immutable objects have a stable state. Drawbacks can include potential performance costs and increased memory usage due to the creation of new objects rather than in-place updates.

See also: immutability.