.bss
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- "bss" redirects here. For other uses, see BSS.
In computer programming, .bss or bss is used by many compilers and linkers as the name of the data segment containing uninitialized variables. It is often referred to as the "bss section" or "bss segment".
Historically, BSS (from Block Started by Symbol) was a pseudo-instruction in UA-SAP (United Aircraft Symbolic Assembly Program), the assembler developed in the mid-1950s for the IBM 704 by Roy Nutt, Walter Ramshaw, and others at United Aircraft Corporation.
The BSS keyword was later incorporated into FAP (FORTRAN Assembly Program), IBM's standard assembler for its 709 and 7090/94 computers. It defined a label and reserved uninitialized space for a given number of words.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Unix FAQ section 1.3, where Dennis Ritchie explains the origins of the term "bss"
