sharchive /shar'ki:v/ n.
[Unix and Usenet; from /bin/sh
archive] A flattened representation of a set of one or more
files, with the unique property that it can be unflattened (the
original files restored) by feeding it through a standard Unix
shell; thus, a sharchive can be distributed to anyone running Unix,
and no special unpacking software is required. Sharchives are also
intriguing in that they are typically created by shell scripts; the
script that produces sharchives is thus a script which produces
self-unpacking scripts, which may themselves contain scripts. (The
downsides of sharchives are that they are an ideal venue for
Trojan horse attacks and that, for recipients not running
Unix, no simple un-sharchiving program is possible; sharchives can
and do make use of arbitrarily-powerful shell features.)
Sharchives are also commonly referred to as `shar files' after the
name of the most common program for generating them.
[Unix and Usenet; from /bin/sh
archive] A flattened representation of a set of one or more
files, with the unique property that it can be unflattened (the
original files restored) by feeding it through a standard Unix
shell; thus, a sharchive can be distributed to anyone running Unix,
and no special unpacking software is required. Sharchives are also
intriguing in that they are typically created by shell scripts; the
script that produces sharchives is thus a script which produces
self-unpacking scripts, which may themselves contain scripts. (The
downsides of sharchives are that they are an ideal venue for
Trojan horse attacks and that, for recipients not running
Unix, no simple un-sharchiving program is possible; sharchives can
and do make use of arbitrarily-powerful shell features.)
Sharchives are also commonly referred to as `shar files' after the
name of the most common program for generating them.
Related:
- sharchive: /shar'ki:v/ [UNIX and USENET; from /bin/sh archive]
n.
A {flatten}ed representation of a set of one or more... - rc file: /R-C fi:l/ [UNIX: from the startup script
`/etc/rc',
but this is commonly believed to have been named ... - UNIX Shell is the Best Fourth Generation Programming Language
It is the UNIX shell that makes it possible to do applications in a small
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In the shell you process whole files at a time... - How many
Unix hacks
-- does it take to change a light bulb?
Let's see, can you use a shell script for that or does... - shebang /sh*-bang/ n.
The character sequence "#!"
that frequently begins executable shell scripts under Unix.
Probably derived from "shell bang" under the influence... - dot file [Unix] n.
A file that is not visible by default to
normal directory-browsing tools (on Unix,
files named with a leading dot are, by convention... - dot file: [UNIX] n. A file that is not visible by default to
normal directory-browsing tools (on UNIX,
files named with a leading dot are, by convention... - shell [orig. Multics n.
techspeak, widely propagated
via Unix] 1.
[techspeak] The command interpreter used to pass ... - glob /glob/, not /glohb/ v.,n.
[Unix;
common] To expand special characters in a wildcarded name,
or the act of so doing (the action is also called...
From the same category:
- can't happen
The traditional program comment for code
executed under a condition that should never be true,
for example a file size computed as negative. Often... - syntactic sugar n.
[coined by Peter Landin] Features added
to a language or other formalism to make it `sweeter' for
humans,
features which do not affect the expressiveness of... - crawling horror n.
Ancient crufty hardware or software that
is kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the
hackers at a site.
Like dusty deck or gonkulator, but connotes... - kill file n.
[Usenet; very common] (alt.
`KILL file') Per-user file(s) used by some Usenet... - time T /ti:m T/ n.
1. An unspecified but usually
well-understood time,
often used in conjunction with a later time T+1...
