17 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
17 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>line eater, the</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../L.html" title="L"/><link rel="previous" href="line-666.html" title="line 666"/><link rel="next" href="line-noise.html" title="line noise"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">line eater, the</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="line-666.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">L</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="line-noise.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="line-eater--the"/><dt xmlns="" id="line-eater--the"><b>line eater, the</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n. obs.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> 1. [Usenet] A bug in some now-obsolete versions of the netnews
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software that used to eat up to BUFSIZ bytes of the article text. The bug
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was triggered by having the text of the article start with a space or tab.
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This bug was quickly personified as a mythical creature called the
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<span class="firstterm">line eater</span>, and postings often
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included a dummy line of <span class="firstterm">line eater
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food</span>. Ironically, line eater ‘food’ not beginning
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with a space or tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was avoided; but
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if there <span class="emphasis"><em>was</em></span> a space or tab before it, then the line
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eater would eat the food <span class="emphasis"><em>and</em></span> the beginning of the text
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it was supposed to be protecting. The practice of <span class="firstterm">sacrificing to the line eater</span> continued for
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some time after the bug had been <a href="../N/nailed-to-the-wall.html"><i class="glossterm">nailed to the wall</i></a>,
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and is still humorously referred to. The bug itself was still occasionally
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reported to be lurking in some mail-to-netnews gateways as late as 1991.
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</p></dd><dd><p> 2. See <a href="../N/NSA-line-eater.html"><i class="glossterm">NSA line eater</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="line-666.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../L.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="line-noise.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">line 666 </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> line noise</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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