Shebang

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Shebang \She*bang"\, n. [Cf. {Shebeen}.]
     1. A jocosely depreciative name for a dwelling or shop; a
        primitive dwelling; a shanty. [Slang, U.S.]
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The structure of an object, process, organization, or


        anything viewed as complicated; -- used primarily in the
        phrase
  
     {the whole shebang}; as, it comes with unnecessary frills,
        but you have to buy the whole shebang. [informal]
        [PJC]
  
     3. (computers) [Possibly derived from shell bang; the
        character ! is referred to in some computer contexts as
        bang.] The character sequence #!, which frequently begins
        shell scripts in a Unix system.
        [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  shebang
       n : an entire system; used in the phrase `the whole shebang'

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  shebang /sh*-bang/ n. The character sequence "#!" that frequently
     begins executable shell scripts under Unix. Probably derived from "shell
     bang" under the influence of American slang "the whole shebang"
     (everything, the works).
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  shebang
       
           (Or "shebang line", "{bang path}")
          /sh*-bang'/ (From "{sharp}" and "{bang}") The {magic cookie}
          "#!" used in {Unix} to mark the start of a {script}, e.g. a
          {shell script} or {Perl script}.
       
          Under {Unix}, if the first two bytes of an {executable} file
          are "#!", the {kernel} treats the file as a script rather than
          a {machine code} program.  The word following the "!" (i.e.,
          everything up to the first {whitespace}) is used as the
          {pathname} of the {interpreter}.  For example, if the first
          line of an executable is
       
           #!/usr/local/bin/perl
       
          the script will be treated as a {Perl} script and passed as an
          argument to /usr/local/bin/perl to be interpreted.  Some
          variants of Unix also allow one or more parameters to be
          passed to the interpreter, for example, you can write
       
           #!/usr/bin/perl -w
       
          and the script will be started as if you typed
       
           /usr/bin/perl -w 
       
          on the command line.  Also, most modern kernels ignore any
          whitespace between the "!" and the interpreter pathname.  Even
          some modern kernels have fairly small limits (e.g. 32) on the
          length of line they will accept, making long pathnames and
          arguments somewhat unportable.
       
          [Does anyone call this a "magic string"?]
       
          (1998-05-06)