18 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
18 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>magic cookie</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../M.html" title="M"/><link rel="previous" href="magic.html" title="magic"/><link rel="next" href="magic-number.html" title="magic number"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">magic cookie</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="magic.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">M</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="magic-number.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="magic-cookie"/><dt xmlns="" id="magic-cookie"><b>magic cookie</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [Unix; common] </p></dd><dd><p> 1. Something passed between routines or programs that enables the
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receiver to perform some operation; a capability ticket or opaque
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identifier. Especially used of small data objects that contain data
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encoded in a strange or intrinsically machine-dependent way. E.g., on
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non-Unix OSes with a non-byte-stream model of files, the result of
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<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">ftell</span>(3)</span>
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may be a magic cookie rather than a byte offset; it can be passed to
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<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">fseek</span>(3)</span>,
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but not operated on in any meaningful way. The phrase <span class="firstterm">it hands you a magic cookie</span> means it returns a
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result whose contents are not defined but which can be passed back to the
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same or some other program later. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. An in-band code for changing graphic rendition (e.g., inverse
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video or underlining) or performing other control functions (see also
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<a href="../C/cookie.html"><i class="glossterm">cookie</i></a>). Some older terminals would leave a blank
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on the screen corresponding to mode-change magic cookies; this was also
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called a <a href="../G/glitch.html"><i class="glossterm">glitch</i></a> (or occasionally a <span class="firstterm">turd</span>; compare
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<a href="mouse-droppings.html"><i class="glossterm">mouse droppings</i></a>). See also <a href="../C/cookie.html"><i class="glossterm">cookie</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="magic.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../M.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="magic-number.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">magic </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> magic number</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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