Meaning of 'secret key stub' (gnupg-1.4.1)

[Werner Koch]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 18:10:29 +0100, Jaime Suárez said:

> What is a "secret key stub"? I don't know how to translate it.
> Thanks.

To gpg it looks lile a decret key but in fact it is just a faked one
or placeholder for the actual secret key.  When gpg gets on such a
stub it knows that something special needs to be done and in our case
diverts the operation to the smartcard where the actual secret key is
stored.

  stub
  
     1. <programming> A dummy procedure used when linking a program
     with a {run-time library}.  The stub routine need not contain
     any code and is only present to prevent "undefined label"
     errors at link time.
  
     2. <programming, networking> A local procedure in a {remote
     procedure call}.  The {client} calls the stub to perform some
     task and need not necessarily be aware that RPC is involved.
     The stub transmits parameters over the network to the {server}
     and returns the results to the caller.
  
     (1995-11-09)
 

Salam-Shalom,

   Werner