legal

Loosely used to mean "in accordance with all the relevant

rules", especially in connection with some set of constraints

defined by software. "The older =+ alternate for += is no

longer legal syntax in ANSI C." "This parser processes each

line of legal input the moment it sees the trailing linefeed."

Hackers often model their work as a sort of game played with

the environment in which the objective is to maneuver through

the thicket of "natural laws" to achieve a desired objective.

Their use of "legal" is flavoured as much by this game-playing

sense as by the more conventional one having to do with courts

and lawyers. Compare language lawyer, legalese.

[Jargon File]