Home > Spigot

A spigot is a small wooden peg used to stop the vent-hole of a barrel or cask. The term can also mean vent-peg, a similar peg inserted into and controlling the opening or tube of a faucet and used to regulate the flow of liquor.

"Spigot" is also the screenname of Tristan A. Farnon, cartoonist for the now-defuct humor site Leisure Town, and occasional contributor to Rotten.com

Spigot algorithms are used to compute the values of the mathematical constants (most famously) pi and e. Unlike recursive algorithms, a spigot algorithm yields outputs incrementally without referring to previously computed digits. The number of digits to be computed is specified in advance, and may still produce an incorrect last few digits.