A live range is the portion of a program during which a computed value must remain available for a possible future use. It connects a definition with uses reached before that value is replaced. The concept concerns a particular value's lifetime, which need not occupy the whole textual scope of its source program variable.[ref]
In a = read(); b = a + 1; return b;, the value assigned to a must survive until the addition reads it. After that read it can be discarded, while b must survive until the return. Register allocation can reuse storage for values whose live ranges do not overlap. Branches and loops can make a live range span several regions of a control-flow graph, rather than one uninterrupted interval of source lines.

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