nasal demons
Recognised shorthand on the Usenet group comp.std.c for any unexpected behaviour
of a C compiler on encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on
that group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler encounters [a
given undefined construct] it is legal for it to make demons fly out of your
nose" (the implication is that the compiler may choose any arbitrarily bizarre
way to interpret the code without violating the ANSI C standard). Someone else
followed up with a reference to "nasal demons", which quickly became
established.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
narrowband « narrowing « NAS « nasal demons »
NASI » nastistical » NASTRAN
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