Re: "a.out"

[bruce@Pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

> There must be a historical reason for the name a.out.  I wonder what
> it is?  Who can we ask?

A.out stands for Assembler Output. Most Unix linkers use the name a.out
for their default output. The header file /usr/include/a.out.h held the
description of this file format, all the way back to Version 6 Unix on
the PDP-11 (my first Unix platform), and through 4BSD on the VAX, Sun,
etc. Later on, the COFF and ELF came about. These newer formats may also be
documented in a.out.h, and the linker still uses a.out as the default name,
which I agree would cause confusion.

	Thanks

	Bruce Perens
--
Bruce Perens <Bruce@Pixar.com> A campaigner for Clinton and against Censorship.
Toy Story: $183M and counting. At $186M it will beat the #1 movie of 1995.