I have a 7MB file named CORE in my home directory owned by ROOT. I assume I created it logged in as SU but can anyone tell me what it is, how I might have created it and if can it be deleted?

thanks

Sometime ago linux spat the dummy and did a dump, the residue is the file called core. Delete it, it's used for debugging purposes.

Um, to be a little more specific :

The name "core" comes from the old days when memory was made of ferrite cores. The term "core" was (and still is) used interchangeably with the term "memory".

When a program aborts abnormally, it tries to write the information it has stored in RAM to a file before it totally dies (this is called "dumping core"). The idea is that later examination of the contents of the file might help a debugger determine what caused the crash.

BTW- feel free to trash it, it's not doing anything but taking up space.