Editing Preferred Executable Format (section)

{{Infobox file format
| name = Preferred Executable Format
| icon = 
| extension = 
| mime = 
| type code = 
| uniform type = com.apple.pef-binary
| owner = [[Apple Computer]]
| genre = [[executable]]
| container for = [[PowerPC]] [[executable]] and [[object code]]
| contained by = 
| extended from = 
| extended to = 
| standard = 
}}
The '''Preferred Executable Format''' is a [[file format]] that specifies the format of [[executable]] files and other [[object code]]. PEF executables are also called [[Code Fragment Manager]] files (CFM).

PEF was developed by [[Apple Computer]] for use in its [[classic Mac OS]] [[operating system]]. It was optimised for [[Reduced instruction set computer|RISC]] [[central processing unit|processors]]. In [[macOS]], the [[Mach-O]] file format is the native [[executable]] format. However, PEF was still supported on [[PowerPC]]-based Macintoshes running Mac OS X and was used by some [[Carbon (computing)|Carbon]] applications ported from earlier versions for classic Mac OS, so that the same binary could be run on classic Mac OS and Mac OS X.

[[BeOS]] on PowerPC systems also uses PEF, although [[x86]] systems do not.