[goch-uh] 
| Pronunciation Spelling. got you (usually used interjectionally). |
| got·cha (gŏch'ə) interj. Used to indicate understanding or to signal the fact of having caught or defeated another. n. A game or endeavor in which one party seeks to catch another out, as in a mistake or lie. [Contraction of got you.] |
gotcha
[ˈgɑtʃə]
|
gotcha jargon, programming
A misfeature of a system, especially a programming language or environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes because it both enticingly easy to invoke and completely unexpected and/or unreasonable in its outcome.
For example, a classic gotcha in C is the fact that
if (a=b) code;
is syntactically valid and sometimes even correct. It puts the value of "b" into "a" and then executes "code" if "a" is non-zero. What the programmer probably meant was
if (a==b) code;
which executes "code" if "a" and "b" are equal.
[The Jargon File]
(1995-04-17)
ə