4  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Shim  \Shim\,  n. 
  1.  A  kind  of  shallow  plow  used  in  tillage  to  break  the 
  ground,  and  clear  it  of  weeds. 
 
  2.  (Mach.)  A  thin  piece  of  metal  placed  between  two  parts  to 
  make  a  fit 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  shim 
  n  :  a  thin  wedge  of  material  (wood  or  metal  or  stone)  for 
  driving  into  crevices 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [jargon]: 
 
  shim  n.  A  small  piece  of  data  inserted  in  order  to  achieve  a 
  desired  memory  alignment  or  other  addressing  property.  For  example,  the 
  PDP-11  Unix  linker,  in  split  I&D  (instructions  and  data)  mode,  inserts 
  a  two-byte  shim  at  location  0  in  data  space  so  that  no  data  object 
  will  have  an  address  of  0  (and  be  confused  with  the  C  null  pointer). 
  See  also  {loose  bytes}. 
 
 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  shim 
 
    A  small  piece  of  data  inserted  in  order  to 
  achieve  a  desired  {memory  alignment}  or  other  addressing 
  property.  For  example,  the  {PDP-11}  {Unix}  {linker},  in  split 
  I&D  (instructions  and  data)  mode,  inserts  a  two-{byte}  shim  at 
  location  0  in  data  space  so  that  no  data  object  will  have  an 
  address  of  0  (and  be  confused  with  the  {C}  null  pointer). 
 
  See  also  {loose  bytes}. 
 
  [{Jargon  File}] 
 
  (1994-12-21) 
 
 

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