secondary damage

secondary damage
 n.

   When a fatal error occurs (esp. a {segfault}) the immediate cause may
   be that a pointer has been trashed due to a previous {fandango on
   core}. However, this fandango may have been due to an earlier
   fandango, so no amount of analysis will reveal (directly) how the
   damage occurred. "The data structure was clobbered, but it was
   secondary damage." By extension, the corruption resulting from N
   cascaded fandangoes on core is `Nth-level damage'. There is at least
   one case on record in which 17 hours of {grovel}ling with adb actually
   dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of seventh-level damage!
   The hacker who accomplished this near-superhuman feat was presented
   with an award by his fellows.
    

secondary damage

   When a fatal error occurs (especially a {segfault}) the
   immediate cause may be that a pointer has been trashed due to
   a previous {fandango on core}.  However, this fandango may
   have been due to an *earlier* fandango, so no amount of
   analysis will reveal (directly) how the damage occurred.  "The
   data structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage."

   By extension, the corruption resulting from N cascaded
   fandangoes on core is "Nth-level damage".  There is at least
   one case on record in which 17 hours of {grovel}ling with
   "adb" actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of
   seventh-level damage!  The hacker who accomplished this
   near-superhuman feat was presented with an award by his
   fellows.

   [{Jargon File}]