OS - Native Executable File | Native Image | Program

About

An executable file is file (also known as an image) used to create a process (ie an executable instance of this file)

An OS executable file has the format of a object file generated by a compiler. See format

An executable code is executed in the execution environment

Format

• OS - Object File:
  • Linux: OS / Linux - Executable and Linkable Format (ELF), wiki/COFF, …
  • Windows: See Windows - Executable (Library/Program)
• plain binary files
• More … wiki/Comparison_of_executable_file_formats

Management

Build

Native image builds for a specific target platform have to be created from a specific host platform (e.g. Windows native build has to be done on Windows, an iOS native build on macOS).

This hurdle can be overcome by using a build automation tool like Github Actions, which provides build 'runners' for every major OS.

Command

It is given in a command

See

in Process Explorer, double click on a process:

Documentation / Reference

• wiki/Executable
• wiki/Computer_program