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16<title>Using as: Object</title>
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66Next: <a href="Errors.html#Errors" accesskey="n" rel="next">Errors</a>, Previous: <a href="Input-Files.html#Input-Files" accesskey="p" rel="previous">Input Files</a>, Up: <a href="Overview.html#Overview" accesskey="u" rel="up">Overview</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="AS-Index.html#AS-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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69<a name="Output-_0028Object_0029-File"></a>
70<h3 class="section">1.6 Output (Object) File</h3>
71
72<a name="index-object-file"></a>
73<a name="index-output-file"></a>
74<a name="index-a_002eout"></a>
75<a name="index-_002eo"></a>
76<p>Every time you run <code>as</code> it produces an output file, which is
77your assembly language program translated into numbers.  This file
78is the object file.  Its default name is <code>a.out</code>.
79You can give it another name by using the <samp>-o</samp> option.  Conventionally,
80object file names end with <samp>.o</samp>.  The default name is used for historical
81reasons: older assemblers were capable of assembling self-contained programs
82directly into a runnable program.  (For some formats, this isn&rsquo;t currently
83possible, but it can be done for the <code>a.out</code> format.)
84</p>
85<a name="index-linker"></a>
86<a name="index-ld"></a>
87<p>The object file is meant for input to the linker <code>ld</code>.  It contains
88assembled program code, information to help <code>ld</code> integrate
89the assembled program into a runnable file, and (optionally) symbolic
90information for the debugger.
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