Questions tagged [elf]

The Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) standard describes a layout for files containing executable machine code. The format is non-proprietary, flexible, extensible and machine architecture-independent.

Most modern open-source operating systems (e.g., Linux) use ELF for their native executables. Notable exceptions are Windows (using PE/COFF) and macOS/iOS (using Mach-O).

Questions that should use the elf tag:

• Questions about the ELF format itself, e.g. how certain fields should be used or what their intention is.
• Questions about reading/parsing ELF files, e.g. via the C elf.h standard header or with the readelf program.
• Question about writing/modifying ELF files, e.g. using tools like objcopy or strip.

Resources:

• elf(5) Linux manual page
  Contains a quick overview over the ELF format and its most common data types.
• ELF format specification
  This is the official full specification of the ELF format.

Related tags:

• readelf For questions about the readelf program, which is used for parsing and dumping most non-machine code sections of an ELF file.
• objcopy For questions about the objcopy program, which allows changing section contents or adding sections to existing ELF files.