Published
Category: risc-v
Tags: risc-v gcc

Notes on ELF Files

As a continuation of working with the RISC-V version of GCC, I want to make sure I understand more details about the nuances of ELF files, to make sure nothing goes wrong and we won't have any issues using memory mapped I/O in our processor. Especially since if I can get away with it, being eventually able to printf to an LED array would be pretty cool, but is dependent on learning how printf actually works in the background

Sections of an ELF file

  • ELF header
  • .text: the machine code of the compiled program
  • .rodata: Read only data such as the format strings in printf statements, and jump tables for switch statements
  • .data: Initialized global and static C variables. Local C variables are maintained at run time on the stack and do not appear in either the .data or .bss sections
  • .bss: Uninitialized global and static C variables, along wiht any global or static variables that are initialized to zero. This section occupies no actual space in the object file; it is merely a placeholder. Object file formats distinguish between initialized and unintialized variables for space efficiency: uninitialized variables do not have to occupy any actual disk space in the object file. At run time, these variables are allocated in memory with an initial value of zero
  • .symtab: A symbol table with information about functions and global variables that are dfined and referenced in the program. Some programmers mistakenly believe that a program must be compiled with the -g option to get symbol table information. In fact, every relocatable object file has a symbol table in .symtab (unless the programmer has specifically removed it with the strip command). However, unlike the symbol table inside a compiler, the .symtab symbol table does not contain entries for local variables
  • .rel.text
  • .rel.data
  • .debug
  • .line
  • .strtab
  • Section header table