Re: Help my understanding of compiled code

Alan Donovan (adonovan@imerge.co.uk) wrote:
: If you want to look at one, find a Windows box, and invoke Quick View
: on an file of type .exe or .dll -- this will show the COFF header and
: some other windowsy things.


On UNIXes, or on Windows with a GNU compatibility library like Cygwin,
you can use objdump to examine the contents of executable and
relocatable object files. They will show things like the section
headers, the disassembled code in the .text segment, etc.


: Search the web for ELF or COFF and you're bound to find something.


A recent post to this newsgroup referred to John R. Levine's book,
entitled "Linkers and Loaders." I just bought it, and it does a fine
job of explaining the ins and outs of object files, how things are
linked, Windows vs. Unix, etc. Includes a description of ELF and
a.out (I believe this is the same as COFF).


On-line, a good source of references for ELF and PE formats is


http://x86.ddj.com/intel.doc/tools.htm


Mike
--
Michael Hicks
Ph.D. Candidate, the University of Pennsylvania
mwh@gradient.cis.upenn.edu
[The book is, amazingly, temporarily out of stock. Evidently the
first print run sold out instantly, we're waiting for the new run to
be done. I'm the author, and I've only been able to get one (1) copy
out of them so far. -John]

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