What does this do in CSH?

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What does this do in CSH?

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10-26-2012

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What does this do in CSH?

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What does the following do in CSH?

Code:

:(){:|:&};:

I was asked the question, but I don't know. I'm not aware of the context.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

wallg

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10-26-2012

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Disasters. If you care of the well being of your system, DO NOT TYPE THIS!!! If you type this, DO NOT PRESS RETURN!!!

Basically what you are doing here is defining a recursive function gone rogue. The name of the function is : (as in colon) and it calls itself repeatedly, exhausting your system resources in a jiffy. In another operating system$ that I will not mention by name, this would be called a "Blue Screen Of Death".

Beware.

Last edited by hexram; 10-26-2012 at 11:04 PM..

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