A single value that is interpreted as an absolute value, rather than as a normalized value in a specified range (as is a component). Color indexes are the names of colors, which are dereferenced by the display hardware using the color map. Indexes are typically masked, rather than clamped, when out of range. For example, the index 0xf7 is masked to 0x7 when written to a 4-bit buffer (color or stencil). Color indexes and stencil indexes are always treated as indexes, never as components.