"File types"

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Tony Duell once stated:
> > And even CP/M apps were somewhat sensitized... Ever type A:ASM FOO.ASM and
> > wonder why you got a disk specification error?
> 
> Doesn't it try to write the object to S:, and the listing to M: ? Neither 
> of which probably exist.
> 
> I remember the first time I used ZASM (a CP/M Z80 assembler) on an 
> RML380Z. I typed 'ZASM FOO,ZSM and got a 'BDOS ERROR ON Z: SELECT' for my 
> efforts....
> 
> To return to the original question, how far back do you have to go for 
> unix's cc(1) to require .c on C source files, .o on object files (to be 
> linked it), and so on?

  Not very far.

	[spc]linus:~/source/cgi/src>gcc --version
	2.7.2.3
	[spc]linus:~/source/cgi/src>cp pair.c pair.blah
	[spc]linus:~/source/cgi/src>gcc -c pair.blah
	gcc: pair.blah: linker input file unused since linking not done
	[spc]linus:~/source/cgi/src>gcc -c pair.c
	[spc]linus:~/source/cgi/src>ls pair.*  
	pair.blah  pair.c     pair.h     pair.o
	[spc]linus:~/source/cgi/src>

  That's late 1997 (still running a RedHat 5.2 system).  Checking a newer
system (install just two weeks ago):

	[root at spodie tmp]# gcc -c hello.blah
	gcc: hello.blah: linker input file unused because linking not done
	[root at spodie tmp]# gcc -c hello.c
	[root at spodie tmp]# ls hello.*
	hello.blah  hello.c  hello.o

  So it looks like GCC doesn't like arbitrary extentions.

  -spc (which actually surprised me ... )