gangway

n 1: a temporary passageway of planks (as over mud on a building

site)

2: a temporary bridge for getting on and off a vessel at

dockside [syn: {gangplank}, {gangboard}]

3: passageway between seating areas as in an auditorium or

passenger vehicle or between areas of shelves of goods as

in stores [syn: {aisle}]

gateway

1. A deprecated term for a device that enables

data to flow between different networks (forming an

{internet}).

Preferred terms are "{protocol converter}" (connects networks

that use different {protocols}), "{router}" (connects two

broadcast networks at layer 3 ({network layer}). Another

example is a {mail gateway}, which is a layer 7 ({application

layer}) gateway.

2. An {interface} between an information source

and a {World-Wide Web} {server}. {Common Gateway Interface}

is a {standard} for such interfaces. The information source

can be any system that can be accessed by a program running on

the web server. A typical example is a {relational

database}.

(2000-05-24)