Locality of reference

In computer science, locality of reference, also known as the principle of locality, is a term for the phenomenon in which the same values, or related storage locations, are frequently accessed. There are two basic types of reference locality – temporal and spatial locality. Temporal locality refers to the reuse of specific data, and/or resources, within a relatively small time duration. Spatial locality refers to the use of data elements within relatively close storage locations. Sequential locality, a special case of spatial locality, occurs when data elements are arranged and accessed linearly, such as, traversing the elements in a one-dimensional array.