Re: PATCH: Improve .note section handling in readelf

[Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>]

Alan Modra wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 07:16:20PM -0700, Mark Mitchell wrote:
>
> > Also, I see that obj-elf.c in GAS is emitting bogus entries when
> > processing ".version".  In particular, it sets the name in the note to
> > the version.  The name in the note should be the toolchain that
> > created the note, probably "GNU" in our case.  The version itself
> > should go in the description field.
>
>
> That is true according to the current ELF gABI, but the wording is
> fairly weak "by convention, vendors use their own name".  However, gas
> has been using the name entry for the version string since 1993, which
> predates any ELF spec I could find.  Changing the note will no doubt
> break tools that scan this note, if there are any such tools.
>
> Which is really just stating the obvious.  I'm not against the change
> since I'm not aware of any tools that scan NT_VERSION notes..

Yes, that's why I was asking.  I do not know of any such tools, but then 
again I don't know that I would know. :-)  I'm not very intent on 
changing this; it's not hurting me in any way.  It's just weird is all.

> > And, the "namesz" field in the
> > ELF note is bogus; it's being rounded up to a wordsize boundary, but
> > the correct thing to is just to pad the entry itself, not round the
> > "namesz" field.
>
> Yes, that should be fixed.

OK, I'll do at least that bit then.

--
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery, LLC
mark@codesourcery.com