1
通用的解釋
** rc= RunCom =Run commands**
通常指包含命令啟動信息的文件。
"rc" 是取自 "runcom", 來自麻省理工學院在 1965 年發展的 CTSS系統。相關文獻曾記載這一段話: '具有從檔案中取出一系列命令來執行的功能；這稱為 "run commands" 又稱為 "runcom"，而這種檔案又稱為一個 runcom (a runcom)。
wiki的解釋
The term rc stands for the phrase "run commands". It is used for any file that contains startup information for a command. It is believed to have originated somewhere in 1965 from a runcom facility from the MIT Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS).
From Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie: "There was a facility that would execute a bunch of commands stored in a file; it was called runcom for 'run commands', and the file began to be called 'a runcom'. rc in Unix is a fossil from that usage."[1]
Tom Van Vleck, a Multics engineer, has also reminisced about the extension rc: "The idea of having the command processing shell be an ordinary slave program came from the Multics design, and a predecessor program on CTSS by Louis Pouzin called RUNCOM, the source of the '.rc' suffix on some Unix configuration files."
2
個人感覺比較好，也比較認同的解釋
rc=Run Control 運行控制
rc may also be expanded as "run control", because an rc file controls how a program runs. For instance, the editor Vim looks for and reads the contents of the .vimrc file to determine its initial configuration. In The Art of Unix Programming, Eric S. Raymond consistently refers to rc files as "run-control" files.
