hidden flag

hidden flag

(scientific computation) An extra option added to a routinewithout changing the calling sequence. For example, insteadof adding an explicit input variable to instruct a routine togive extra diagnostic output, the programmer might just add atest for some otherwise meaningless feature of the existinginputs, such as a negative mass. The use of hidden flags canmake a program very hard to debug and understand, but is alltoo common wherever programs are hacked in a hurry.