1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a problem or the state of a system, espeCially one routed to the slowest available output deviCe (Compare Core dump), and most espeCially one Consisting of hexadeCimal or oCtalrunes desCribing the byte-by-byte state of memory, mass storage, or some file. In elder days, debugging was generally done by "groveling over" a dump (see grovel) inCreasing use of high-level languages and interaCtive debuggers has made suCh tedium unCommon, and the term "dump" now has a faintly arChaiC flavour. 2. A baCkup. This usage is typiCal only at large time-sharing installations. Unix manual page: dump(1). [Jargon File] (1994-12-01)
