Running a C program in Linux

Question

Can someone explain to me why, in particular, we are using ./a.out to run a program?

Is there any meaning behind this?

Can someone please provide an explanation?

Answer 1

The name stands for "assembler output", and was (and still is) the default name for the executable generated by the compiler. The reason you need ./ in front of it is because the current directory (.) is not in $PATH therefore the path to the executable must be explicitly given.