From owner-cvs-all Mon Apr 15 19:15:12 2002 Delivered-To: cvs-all@freebsd.org Received: from canberra.worldwide.lemis.com (CPE-203-51-27-136.nsw.bigpond.net.au [203.51.27.136]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8EFDD37B400; Mon, 15 Apr 2002 19:15:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from canberra.worldwide.lemis.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by canberra.worldwide.lemis.com (8.12.2/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g3G2D9YX092473; Tue, 16 Apr 2002 11:43:10 +0930 (CST) (envelope-from grog@canberra.worldwide.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by canberra.worldwide.lemis.com (8.12.3/8.12.2/Submit) id g3G2D8Em092472; Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:13:09 +1000 (EST) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:13:08 +1000 From: Greg Lehey To: Tom Rhodes Cc: cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: bss (was: cvs commit: src/share/man/man5 a.out.5) Message-ID: <20020416121308.E40110@canberra.worldwide.lemis.com> References: <200204150205.g3F256861556@freefall.freebsd.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <200204150205.g3F256861556@freefall.freebsd.org>; from trhodes@FreeBSD.org on Sun, Apr 14, 2002 at 07:05:06PM -0700 Organization: The FreeBSD Project Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ X-PGP-Fingerprint: 9A1B 8202 BCCE B846 F92F 09AC 22E6 F290 507A 4223 Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sunday, 14 April 2002 at 19:05:06 -0700, Tom Rhodes wrote: > trhodes 2002/04/14 19:05:06 PDT > > Modified files: > share/man/man5 a.out.5 > Log: > a.out.5 states that nobody seems to agree on what bss stands for. This is > incorrect, however, as Dennis Ritchie states ``Actually the acronym is "block > started by symbol." It was a pseudo-op in FAP (Fortran Assembly Program), an > assembler for the IBM machines. It identified its label and set > aside space for a given number of words.'' BSS is one of a number of similar directives for old assemblers, not just IBM. I've seen it on CDC as well (3200/3400 and 3600/3800). The reason for the name is that there was also another directive, BES (block ending with symbol) which reserved space and returned the address of the last word (because this was convenient for some repeated instructions). Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message