[TriLUG] File extensions: OK, I understand now

[Ben Pitzer]

If this is something that you're already aware of, sorry for the spam.
However, if you're new enough to Unix/Linux, it's probably worth mentioning,
to expand on Ritesh's point, that Unix executables usually fall into a
specific directory structure, depending on the Unix for which they're being
compiled.  For example, on Linux, you'll find most system commands in */bin
or */sbin directory structure.

Let's use apache for an example on my Linux box.  The main executable is
located at /usr/sbin/apache.  It has libraries in /usr/lib/apache, modules
in /usr/include/apache-1.3, etc.  So basically, just place your compiled
binary executable in a */bin structure, and everyone will pretty much expect
it to be an executable.  It's not guaranteed to be that way, but it's a very
common practice.

-Ben Pitzer


On Dec 12, 2007 2:15 PM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> OK, I get it now. No file extension. My executable will simply be
> called "fpick". I'm changing my Makefile as we speak.
>
> Thanks for all of your quick input. Some was deadly serious, some was more
> humorous (Hi Alan), but all of you overwhelmingly opined there should be
> no
> extension.
>
> I cut my teeth on the PDP 11 and PC-DOS where extensions were actually
> important, so perhaps I have some predjudices from that early work. If
> this
> were just for myself, I'd probably use the .exe just to humor myself, but
> because this is free software available on the net, I'll follow universal
> convention and not use a file extension.
>
> Thanks
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/
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