Message-Id: <m0uthXU-000fZfC@taliesin.cs.ucla.edu>
From: scottm@taliesin.cs.ucla.edu (Scott Michel)
Subject: Re: Just wondering
To: new-httpd@hyperreal.com
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 14:43:44 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.93.960822093300.7502D-100000@newshare.newshare.com>
 from "David M. Oliver" at Aug 22, 96 09:36:50 am
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>From The New Hacker's Dictionary (aka The Jargon Files):

cookie /n./ 

A handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement between cooperating
programs. "I give him a packet, he gives me back a cookie." The claim check
you get from a dry-cleaning shop is a perfect mundane example of a cookie;
the only thing it's useful for is to relate a later transaction to this
one (so you get the same clothes back). Compare magic cookie; see also
fortune cookie. 

[and for completeness]

fortune cookie /n./ 

[WAITS, via Unix] A random quote, item of trivia, joke, or maxim printed to
the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at logout time. Items from
this lexicon have often been used as fortune cookies. See cookie file. 

magic cookie /n./ 

[Unix] 1. Something passed between routines or programs that enables the
receiver to perform some operation; a capability ticket or opaque identifier.
Especially used of small data objects that contain data encoded in a strange
or intrinsically machine-dependent way. E.g., on non-Unix OSes with a
non-byte-stream model of files, the result of ftell(3) may be a magic cookie
rather than a byte offset; it can be passed to fseek(3), but not operated on
in any meaningful way. The phrase `it hands you a magic cookie' means it
returns a result whose contents are not defined but which can be passed
back to the same or some other program later. 2. An in-band code for changing
graphic rendition (e.g., inverse video or underlining) or performing other
control functions (see also cookie). Some older terminals would leave a
blank on the screen corresponding to mode-change magic cookies; this was
also called a glitch (or occasionally a `turd'; compare mouse droppings).
See also cookie. 


Ok? We set on this yet?


-scooter