May 15, 2003

core dump

n.

[common Iron Age jargon, preserved by Unix]

1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of core, produced when a process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error.

2. By extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or registering extreme shock. He dumped core. All over the floor. What a mess. He heard about X and dumped core.

3. Occasionally used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great length; esp. in apology: Sorry, I dumped core on you.

4. A recapitulation of knowledge (compare bits, sense 1). Hence, spewing all one knows about a topic (syn. brain dump), esp. in a lecture or answer to an exam question. Short, concise answers are better than core dumps (from the instructions to an exam at Columbia). See core.

A core dump lands our hero in hot water.

(This is the last cartoon in the Crunchly saga.)

Posted by Jargon File at May 15, 2003 10:53 AM

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