line eater
<messaging> 1. A bug in some now-obsolete versions of the Usenet software
that used to eat up to BUFSIZ bytes of the article text. The bug was triggered
by having the text of the article start with a space or tab. This bug was
quickly personified as a mythical creature called the "line eater", and postings
often included a dummy line of "line eater food". Ironically, line eater "food"
not beginning with a space or tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was
avoided; but if there *was* a space or tab before it, then the line eater would
eat the food *and* the beginning of the text it was supposed to be protecting.
The practice of "sacrificing to the line eater" continued for some time after
the bug had been nailed to the wall, and is still humorously referred to. The
bug itself is still (in mid-1991) occasionally reported to be lurking in some
mail-to-netnews gateways.
2. NSA line eater.
(1996-04-09)
Nearby terms:
linear transformation « linear type « line
conditioning «
line eater » line editor » line feed » line
noise
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