ELF: From The Programmer's Perspective

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ELF: From The Programmer's Perspective

Hongjiu Lu
hjl@nynexst.com
NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc.
500 Westchester Avenue
White Plains, NY 10604, USA

Abstract:

In this paper, we discuss the new ELF binary format for Linux specifically from the view of the programmer. We introduce some techniques which can be used with ELF to control the execution of a program at run time. We show how to use dynamic linking and dynamic loading under ELF. We also demonstrate how to use the GNU C/C++ compiler and binary utilities to create shared C/C++ libraries under Linux.

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• Introduction
• ELF Types
• The .init and .fini Sections
  • Global Constructors and Destructors in C++
• Dynamic Linking and Dynamic Loading in ELF
  • Dynamic Linking
  • Dynamic Loading
• ELF Support in GCC, GNU Link Editor and Linux
  • The Shared C Library
  • The Shared C++ Library
  • Extended GCC Features
    • The Initialization Functions in the C library
  • Using ELF with GCC and GNU ld
  • ELF under Linux
    • ELF macros
    • Library locations and search paths
    • Library versions for shared libraries
    • Linking with a mix of shared and static libraries
    • Loading additional shared libraries
    • Dynamic loading under Linux
• Programming in Assembly Language with PIC
  • Inline Assembly Statements in C
  • Programming in Assembly Language
• Conclusion
• References
• About this document ...

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J.H.M.Dassen
Tue Aug 1 14:18:10 MDT 1995