Wiktionary
n. (context informal English) A beating; a thrashing; a thorough defeat. vb. (present participle of clobber English)
Wikipedia
In software engineering, clobbering a file or computer memory is overwriting its contents. The Jargon File defines clobbering as "overwrit[ing], usually unintentionally: 'I walked off the end of the array and clobbered the stack.' Compare mung, scribble, trash, and smash the stack."
Often this happens unintentionally, e.g., using the > redirection operator. To prevent unintentional clobbering, various means are used. For example, the setting shell parameter set -o noclobber ( bash, ksh) or set noclobber ( csh, tcsh) will prevent > from clobbering by making it issue an error message instead:
$ echo "Hello, world" >file.txt $ cat file.txt Hello, world $ echo "This will overwrite the first greeting." >file.txt $ cat file.txt This will overwrite the first greeting. $ set -o noclobber $ echo "Can we overwrite it again?" >file.txt -bash: file.txt: cannot overwrite existing file $ echo "But we can use the >| operator to ignore the noclobber." >|file.txt $ cat file.txt # Successfully overwrote the contents of file.txt using the >| operator But we can use the >| operator to ignore the noclobber. $ set +o noclobber # Changes setting backThe default behavior of the mv and cp commands is to clobber their destination file if it already exists. This behavior may be overridden by invoking or aliasing the commands with the -i switch, causing the commands to prompt the user before overwriting the destination file.
In makefiles, a common target clobber means complete cleanup of all unnecessary files and directories produced by previous invocations of the [[make (software)|make]] command. It is a more severe target than clean and is commonly used to uninstall software. Some make-related commands invoke "make clobber" during their execution. They check the CLOBBER environment variable. If it is set to OFF then clobbering is not done.
In assembler programming, the term 'clobbered registers' is used to denote any registers whose value may be overwritten during the course of executing an instruction or procedure.
Usage examples of "clobbering".
Within half an hour, the Clobbering Chair had been dragged out of the blockhouse and into the center of the ville's pounded-dirt square.
While it wasn't unusual for people to fight for the right to be next to sit in the Clobbering Chair, and so to sooner exit the grasp of the pool, no one had ever before demanded the right to be executioner.
He couldn't match names with faces, but every one of them had drawn his or her final breath in the Clobbering Chair.
If there was anyone waiting out there with the hopeful intention of clobbering me, he'd never have a better chance.
He couldn't see her expression but was dolefully certain that she was even then preparing a homily about -the shortcomings of bullies who went around clobbering elderly and defenceless American actors.
Tolito tossing Kook the seven-year-old about the car like a beanbag, and behind it all, clobbering polyrhythmic to the racketing of the shuttle, Jose on his tin drum, forearms and hands vibrating out beyond the persistence of vision, and a tireless smile across his teeth wide as the West Side.
There was then a soft clobbering sound followed by the plainclothesman's crash into the underbrush.
Seeing this, the townspeople rubbed their hands, smirking as they cackled smugly: "Okay, now Cleofes is getting it back in spades for clobbering the bishop.
But once inside his truck he felt so unfairly cheated that he damn near broke a finger clobbering the dashboard.
In fact, almost simultaneously with the blasting cap's roar, Leroy Middleton jammed the car into low and, minus his partner, hauled ass, nearly clobbering James Vincent on the way out.