From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Nov 8 17:07:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA04045 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:07:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id RAA04039 for ; Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:07:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from imp@village.org) Received: from harmony [10.0.0.6] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.71 #1) id 0xULqE-0003Sb-00; Sat, 8 Nov 1997 18:07:06 -0700 Received: from harmony.village.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.village.org (8.8.7/8.8.3) with ESMTP id SAA15626; Sat, 8 Nov 1997 18:07:21 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199711090107.SAA15626@harmony.village.org> To: njs3@doc.ic.ac.uk (Niall Smart) Subject: Re: a.out format Cc: hackers@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 08 Nov 1997 22:55:27 GMT." References: Date: Sat, 08 Nov 1997 18:07:21 -0700 From: Warner Losh Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message Niall Smart writes: : Don't suppose anyone knows how the "a.out" format got its name? "ld foo.o" used to produce (and still does) a file called a.out by default. It used to be the only format. Now, that there are others, you gotta call it something :-). Where the name a.out came from is generally believed to be short for "assembler output" but there has been some other rumors I've heard over the years. Kinda like .bss (which is supposedly from an old IBM op code for Blank Storage Section, which was all zeros, but I'm digressing). Warner