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<h3 class="section">1.6 Output (Object) File</h3>
<p><a name="index-object-file-34"></a><a name="index-output-file-35"></a><a name="index-a_002eout-36"></a><a name="index-_002eo-37"></a>Every time you run <span class="command">as</span> it produces an output file, which is
your assembly language program translated into numbers. This file
is the object file. Its default name is
<code>a.out</code>.
You can give it another name by using the <span class="option">-o</span> option. Conventionally,
object file names end with <span class="file">.o</span>. The default name is used for historical
reasons: older assemblers were capable of assembling self-contained programs
directly into a runnable program. (For some formats, this isn't currently
possible, but it can be done for the <code>a.out</code> format.)
<p><a name="index-linker-38"></a><a name="index-ld-39"></a>The object file is meant for input to the linker <code>ld</code>. It contains
assembled program code, information to help <code>ld</code> integrate
the assembled program into a runnable file, and (optionally) symbolic
information for the debugger.
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