fan
= F =
FAQ
fandango on core n.
[Unix/C hackers, from the Iberian
dance] 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 (or Windows boxes, which have an MMU but use it
incompetently), this can corrupt the OS itself, causing massive
lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the cha-cha or the watusi, may
be substituted. See aliasing bug, precedence lossage,
smash the stack, memory leak, memory smash,
overrun screw, core.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.