Abnormal termination

An AbEnd (also abnormal end or abend) is an abnormal termination of software, or a program crash.

This usage derives from an error message from the IBM OS/360, IBM zOS operating systems. Usually capitalized, but may appear as "abend". It is jocularly claimed to be derived from the German word "Abend" meaning "evening".

The most common were ABEND 0C7 (Data exception) and ABEND 0CB (Division by zero)

Errors or crashes on the Novell NetWare network operating system are usually called ABENDs. Communities of NetWare administrators have sprung up around the Internet, such as abend.org.

This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.

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