<jargon, programming> (Unix/C, from the Mexican dance) In C,
a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a core dump,
or corrupts the malloc arena in such a way as to cause
mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have "done
a fandango on core". On low-end personal machines without an
MMU, this can corrupt the operating system itself, causing
massive lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba,
cha-cha, or watusi, may be substituted.
See aliasing bug, precedence lossage, smash the stack,
memory leak, memory smash, overrun screw, core.
[Jargon File]
(1994-12-16)
Nearby terms:
fall through « fall thru « FALSE « fandango on core » FAP » FAQ » FAQL
