2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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fossil
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only in
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historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to break
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compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as default base for string
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escapes in C , in spite of the better match of hexadecimal to ASCII and
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modern byte-addressable architectures. See dusty deck. 2. More
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restrictively, a feature with past but no present utility. Example: the
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force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 and BSD Unix tty driver, designed for
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use with monocase terminals. (In a perversion of the usual
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backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually been expanded
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and renamed in some later USG Unix releases as the IUCLC and OLCUC bits.
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