film at 11
= F =
Finagle's Law
filter n.
[very common; orig. Unix, now also in
MS-DOS] A program that processes an input data stream into an
output data stream in some well-defined way, and does no I/O to
anywhere else except possibly on error conditions; one designed to
be used as a stage in a `pipeline' (see plumbing). Compare
sponge.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.