core.8459 what is this? I found this 26meg file in a folder

[phazei]

I found this file called "core.8459" in a subfolder in the www directory on the server. It's 26.2megs. I have no clue what it is. I renamed the directory and the site didn't break. Was wondering if someone might know?

Does anyone know of a program that will take a file that has no extension and determine the file type?

thanks
adam

[dcheney]

Sounds like a "core dump". Sometimes when an app or OS fails, it generates a complete copy of everything it was using in memory (for debug purposes) - these are called "core dumps". Check the date - did you happen to have something go oddly wrong around the time it was generated?

Generally if its over a week old, I'd just delete it (but keep an eye out in case they get generated on a regular basis - then you might have a bigger issue to deal with).