1. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly
listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of
all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for
such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced
at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows.) Now rare, esp.
since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g., PHOTO
on TWENEX). However, the Unix world doesn't have an equivalent
term, so perhaps wallpaper will take hold there. The term
probably originated on ITS, where the commands to begin and end
transcript files were :WALBEG and :WALEND, with
default file WALL PAPER (the space was a path delimiter).
2. The background pattern used on graphical workstations (this is
techspeak under the `Windows' graphical user interface to
MS-DOS). 3. `wallpaper file' n. The file that contains the
wallpaper information before it is actually printed on paper.
(Even if you don't intend ever to produce a real paper copy of the
file, it is still called a wallpaper file.)
magic number n.
[Unix/C; common] 1. In source code
some non-obvious constant whose value is significant to the
operation of a program and that is inserted inconspicuously in-line
(hardcoded), rather than expanded in by a symbol set by a
commented #define....
