Clobbering

In software engineering and computer science, clobbering a file, processor register or a region of computer memory is the process of overwriting its contents completely, whether intentionally or unintentionally, or to indicate that such an action will likely occur. The Jargon File defines clobbering as

To overwrite, usually unintentionally: "I walked off the end of the array and clobbered the stack." Compare mung, scribble, trash, and smash the stack.