An executable or executable file, in computer science, is a file whose contents are meant to be interpreted as a program by a computer. Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Computer Science Open Directory Project: Computer Science Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies Belief that title science in computer science is inappropriate Categories: Computer science ... A file in a computer system is a stream (sequence) of bits stored as a single unit, typically in a file system on disk or magnetic tape. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... A computer is a device or machine for making calculations or controlling operations that are expressible in numerical or logical terms. ...

Most often, it contains the binary representation of machine instructions of a specific processor (in which case the executable may also be referred to as a binary), but can also contain an intermediate form that will require the services of an interpreter to be run. Look up binary in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Binary may mean: In mathematics and computer science, the binary (base-two) numeral system is a representation for numbers that uses only zeroes and ones as digits. ... A system of codes directly understandable by a computers CPU is termed this CPUs native or machine language. ... This CPU uses numerous pins to connect to the motherboard. ... Computer files can be divided into two broad categories: binary and text. ... An interpreter is a computer program that executes other programs. ...

Whether a file is an executable or not is mostly a matter of convention; some operating systems designate executable files by specific naming convention (such as the name ending in a filename extension ".exe") or noted alongside the file in its metadata (such as the "execute" permission bits under Unix-like operating systems). In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. ... A filename extensionis an extra set of (usually) alphanumeric characters that is appended to the end of a filename to allow computer users (as well as various pieces of software on the computer system) to quickly determine the type of data stored in the file. ... Metadata (Greek: meta-+data information), literally data about data, is information that describes another set of data. ... Most modern file systems have methods of administering permissions or access rights to specific users and groups of users. ... This article is about the unit of information. ... A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a UNIX system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. ... In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. ...

On most modern architectures, an executable file contains much information which is not part of the program itself, such as information on the environment required to run the program, debugging and symbolic information, or other housekeeping information used by the operating system to prepare the program to be run. Computer architecture is the theory behind the design of a computer. ... Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware thus making it behave as expected. ... Housekeeping is the maintenance of a clean environment, usually in a house, but it also applies to industrial, commercial, and institutional settings. ...

Also, executables contain calls to operating system services in addition to regular machine instructions. This means that executables are usually operating system-specific in addition to being processor-specific. In computing, a system call, or software interrupt is the mechanism used by an application program to request service from the operating system. ...

Nowadays, the distinction between a program in source form (ultimately meant to be human-readable) and in executable form (ultimately meant to be machine-readable) is getting less distinct since the act of transforming the former into the latter (by compilation) or interpreting it may be performed implicitly. Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... A diagram of the operation of an ideal compiler. ...

Thus, the meaning for the term executable has been usually extended from a file containing machine instructions to any file that can ultimately be executed by the environment without requiring an explicit transformation.

Files containing interpreted language, however, are usually named script files or scripts rather than executables. In computer programming, an interpreted language is a programming language whose programs may be executed from source form, by an interpreter. ...

For a list of executable formats, see the lists at object file. In computer science, object file or object code is an intermediate representation of code generated by a compiler after it processes a source code file. ...