Portable Executable (PE) file format

"R.A.L Williams" <bill.williams@gecm.com>
Mon, 23 Oct 1995 09:48:30 GMT

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
Portable Executable (PE) file format osp@nil.fut.es (Oriol de San Pedro) (1995-10-17)
Re: Portable Executable (PE) file format tom@kontron.de (1995-10-23)
Portable Executable (PE) file format bill.williams@gecm.com (R.A.L Williams) (1995-10-23)
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Newsgroups: comp.compilers
From: "R.A.L Williams" <bill.williams@gecm.com>
Keywords: linker
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 95-10-089
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 09:48:30 GMT

The PE file format is very similar to COFF, but with an MSDOS 16bit stub
stuck in front of it. There are one or two extensions to cope with
interface to DLL's and other WIN32 eccentricities. Unfortunately there is
no particularly good documentation. I know of three sources:


    1. The MS developer's library: a CDROM quarterly release which costs
          about 150 pounds/annum. Quite good value if you do a lot of PC
          programming because it contains documentation on all of the MS
          SDKs and DDKs, as well as technical articles, sample code and
          the 'knowledge base' of bug reports.


    2. There was an article in the Microsoft System Journal about a year
          ago. Sorry, I don't have the reference to hand, but if you can find
          a library that keeps the journal, they should be able to find it
          for you. This article is also on the developer's library CDROM.


    3. One of the WIN32 SDK header files (osfcn.h ????) contains details
          of the PE file format, but this needs to be read in conjunction with
          one of the articles.


Sorry this is all a bit vague, but then, so's the documentation. The best bet
is to subscribe to the MS developer network from your local Microsoft
Subscription centre.


Bill
--


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