Assembly, "bash: ./exit: cannot execute binary file"

User Name. · 08-06-2007, 09:58 PM

I am learning assembly from the book Programming from the ground up. I typed together the first program they listed, exit.s:

Code:

 .section .data

 .section .txt
 .globl _start
_start:
 movl $1, %eax	# this is the linux kernel command number (system call) for
		#  exiting a program
 movl $0, %ebx	# this is the status number we will return to the operating
		#  system. change this around and it will return different
		#  different things to "echo $?"
 int $0x80	# this wakes up the kernel to run the exit command

I assemble, and link it:

Code:

bash-3.1$ as exit.s -o exit.o
bash-3.1$ ld exit.o -o exit

Then I try to execute it:

Code:

bash-3.1$ ./exit 
bash: ./exit: cannot execute binary file

I was searching on google for this error, but no luck.

I am running slackware 12, have an HP laptop with an intel processor, if that helps.

So, does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this?