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The ACM Computing Classification System is a subject classification system for computer science devised by the Association for Computing Machinery. The system is comparable to the Mathematics Subject Classification in scope, aims and structure, being used by the various ACM journals to organise subjects by area.

The ACM Computing Classification System is hierarchically structured in four levels: three outer levels, coded by capital letters and numbers, and an uncoded fourth level of subject descriptors. Thus, for example, one branch of the hierarchy contains

I. Computing Methodologies, which contains:

I.2 Artificial Intelligence, which contains:

I.2.4 Knowledge representation formalisms and methods, which contains:

Temporal logic.

Each top-level category has two standard subcategories: "general", coded with a "0", and "miscellaneous", coded with a "m". For instance, I.0 denotes the "general" subcategory of Computing Methodologies, while I.m denotes its miscellaneous subcategory. Several subtopics are listed as uncoded subject descriptors in these standard subcategories.

The 1998 version of the ACM classification has the following main categories.

Section A of the classification is for general computing literature. It includes subtopics for introductory and survey material, and for reference works.

Section B, on hardware, has subtopics for control structures and microprogramming, arithmetic and logic structures, memory structures, input/output and data communications, register-transfer-level implementation, logic design, integrated circuits, and performance and reliability.

Section C concerns computer systems organization. The subtopics of this section are processor architectures, computer-communication networks, special-purpose and application-based systems, performance of systems, and computer system implementation.

Section D of the classification is entitled Software. This section includes two subtopics on software development: programming techniques and software engineering. Two more subtopics concern the software infrastructure needed to run other software: programming languages and operating systems.

Section E, on data, includes subtopics on data structures, data storage representations, data encryption, coding and information theory, and files.

Section F of the classification includes several topics from the theory of computation: computation by abstract devices, analysis of algorithms and problem complexity, logics and meanings of programs, mathematical logic, and formal languages.

Section G contains topics involving the mathematics of computing. Its subtopics are numerical analysis, discrete mathematics, probability and statistics, and mathematical software.

Section H is on information systems. It includes subtopics for models and principles, database management, information storage and retrieval, information systems applications, and information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI).

Section I, on computing methodologies, covers a diverse set of subtopics concerning different application areas of computation: symbolic and algebraic manipulation, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, image processing and computer vision, pattern recognition, simulation and modeling, and document and text processing.

Section J also covers computer applications, but with a focus more on the different application areas and less on the different styles of computation one does in each of those areas. Its subtopics are administrative data processing, physical sciences and engineering, life and medical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, arts and humanities, computer-aided engineering, and computers in other systems.

The final section of the 1998 classification, section K, has as its title Computing Milieux. The subtopics of this section are the computer industry, history of computing, computers and education, computers and society, legal aspects of computing, management of computing and information systems, the computing profession, and personal computing.

The system has gone through six revisions, the first version being published in 1964, and revised versions appearing in 1982, 1983, 1987, 1991, and the now current version in 1998.

• ACM Computing Classification System is the homepage of the system, including links to three complete versions of the system, for 1964 [1], 1991 [2], and the current 1998 version [3]
• XML version of the ACM Computing Classification System version 1998
• The ACM Computing Research Repository uses a classification scheme that is much coarser than the ACM subject classification, and does not cover all areas of CS, but is intended to better cover active areas of research. In addition, papers in this repository are classified according to the ACM subject classification.