as: Object

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1 1.6 Output (Object) File
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1 Every time you run 'as' it produces an output file, which is your
1 assembly language program translated into numbers.  This file is the
1 object file.  Its default name is 'a.out'.  You can give it another name
1 by using the '-o' option.  Conventionally, object file names end with
1 '.o'.  The default name is used for historical reasons: older assemblers
1 were capable of assembling self-contained programs directly into a
1 runnable program.  (For some formats, this isn't currently possible, but
1 it can be done for the 'a.out' format.)
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1    The object file is meant for input to the linker 'ld'.  It contains
1 assembled program code, information to help 'ld' integrate the assembled
1 program into a runnable file, and (optionally) symbolic information for
1 the debugger.
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