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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body style="zoom: 0%;"><div dir="auto">It's been years since I have needed to think about ELF. What brought this up this morning? And I'm sorry I missed it. <br><br></div>
<div dir="auto"><!-- tmjah_g_1299s -->Deid VA7REI<!-- tmjah_g_1299e --></div>
<div class="gmail_quote" >On Oct 25, 2025, at 3:56 p.m., Craig Miller <<a href="mailto:cvmiller@gmail.com" target="_blank">cvmiller@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<p>Thanks Mark,</p>
<p>With that I found this good history, and more detail on the ELF
format.</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~smccaman/courses/8980/spring2020/lectures/04-elf-v2-8up.pdf">https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~smccaman/courses/8980/spring2020/lectures/04-elf-v2-8up.pdf</a></p>
<p>It even mentions the COFF format used before ELF.</p>
<p>Craig...<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/25/25 3:44 PM, James Canova
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CACXjE7TLDeXpOcdDZ6HbE=1BkK9yufRa+2AJeV7onospYepppQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">Super. </div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Oct 25, 2025,
3:31\u202fp.m. Mark G. <<a href="mailto:vicpm%2B25@palaceofretention.ca" moz-do-not-send="true">vicpm+25@palaceofretention.ca</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">This popped
up on Hacker News, and it was related to today's<br>
discussion with James and Dave.<br>
<br>
How programs get run: ELF binaries<br>
<br>
<a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/631631/" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lwn.net/Articles/631631/</a><br>
<br>
It's an old article (2015), but I doubt that makes much of<br>
a difference.<br>
<br>
An excerpt:<br>
<br>
"The ELF format<br>
<br>
The ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) format is the main<br>
binary format in use on modern Linux systems, and support<br>
for it is implemented in the file fs/binfmt_elf.c. It's also<br>
a slightly complicated format for the kernel to handle; the<br>
main load_elf_binary() function spans over 400 lines, and<br>
the ELF support code is more than four times as big as the<br>
code that supports the old a.out format.<br>
<br>
An ELF file for an executable program (rather than a shared<br>
library or an object file) must always contain a program<br>
header table near the start of the file, after the ELF header;<br>
each entry in this table provides information that is needed<br>
to run the program. ..."<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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