stub

A stub is a small program routine that substitutes for a longer program, possibly to be loaded later or that is located remotely. For example, a program that uses Remote Procedure Calls ( RPC ) is compiled with stubs that substitute for the program that provides a requested procedure. The stub accepts the request and then forwards it (through another program) to the remote procedure. When that procedure has completed its service, it returns the results or other status to the stub which passes it back to the program that made the request.