bang path
1. <communications> An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address naming a
sequence of hosts through which a message must pass to get from some
assumed-reachable location to the addressee (a "source route"). So called
because each hop is signified by a bang sign (exclamation mark). Thus, for
example, the path
...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me
directs people to route their mail to computer bigsite (presumably a
well-known location accessible to everybody) and from there
through the computer foovax to the account of user me on
barbox.
Before autorouting mailers became commonplace, people often published compound
bang addresses using the convention (see glob) to give paths from *several* big
computers, in the hope that one's correspondent might be able to get mail to one
of them reliably. e.g.
...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4}!rice!beta!gamma!me
Bang paths of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon in 1981. Late-night dial-up
UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang
paths were often selected by both transmission time and
reliability, as messages would often get lost.
2. <operating system> A shebang.
(1998-05-06)
Nearby terms:
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