overwritten

Overwritten is the past participle of overwrite; used as an adjective or verbal phrase to indicate that content has been replaced by new writing, often replacing the original. It can also refer to data that has been replaced in storage.

In computing and data management, overwriting means writing new data to a location that previously contained different data. This can result in permanent loss of the original contents unless backups, version history, or snapshots exist. File systems generally perform overwrites when saving changes to a file, though many systems use atomic write operations or write to a temporary file and then rename to minimize the risk of ending up with a corrupted file.

In memory and programming, a variable, memory cell, or buffer can be overwritten when a new value is stored at the same location. Overwriting can be intentional or erroneous, and can lead to bugs or security vulnerabilities if unauthorized data replaces legitimate content. Some programming languages provide safeguards such as immutable structures or bounds checking to prevent unintended overwrites.

In literary and journalistic contexts, overwritten describes prose or reporting that is excessively ornate, verbose, or self-conscious, sometimes perceived as diminishing clarity rather than adding meaning.

Safeguards and related concepts include backups, version control, snapshots, copy-on-write, secure delete, and audit trails to protect against unwanted overwriting. Related terms include overwrite, append, truncation, and data corruption.