Skip to Main Content
Idaho State University home

Glossary

Filter:
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z All
F
Fan
FAQ
FAX
FCA
FDM
FEC
FER
FIN
Fix
FOI
FQR
FQT
FRD
Fry
FSD
FTS
Fandango On Core
  • In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a core dump, or corrupts the `malloc (3)' 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 OS 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, core.