2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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shim
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. 1. A small piece of data inserted in order to achieve a desired memory
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alignment or other addressing property. For example, the PDP-11 Unix linker,
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in split I D (instructions and data) mode, inserts a two-byte shim at
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location 0 in data space so that no data object will have an address of 0
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(and be confused with the C null pointer). See also loose bytes. 2. A type
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of small transparent image inserted into HTML documents by certain WYSIWYG
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HTML editors, used to set the spacing of elements meant to have a fixed
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positioning within a TABLE or DIVision. Hackers who work on the HTML code of
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such pages afterwards invariably curse these for their crocky dependence on
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the particular spacing of original image file, the editor that generated
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them, and the version of the browser used to view them. Worse, they are a
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poorly designed kludge which the advent of Cascading Style Sheets makes
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wholly unnecessary; Any fool can plainly see that use of borders, layers and
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positioned elements is the Right Thing (or would be if adequate support for
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CSS were more common).
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