Re: creating binaries by objcopy

[Nick Clifton <nickc at redhat dot com>]

Hi Bahadir,

> The binutils manual says:
>
> "When objcopy generates a raw binary file, it will essentially produce
> a memory dump of the contents of the input object file. All symbols
> and relocation information will be discarded."

First of all, just to be sure that there is no confusion here: when the 
binutils manual talks about a "raw binary" file it is talking about a 
file in one particular specific format.  It is not talking about any 
arbitrary binary file such as an ELF executable file, or an IHEX binary 
file.  It is talking about a *raw* binary file where essentially the 
only structuring is that the file could be loaded/mapped into memory and 
then executed by jumping to an address which the host OS must have found 
out through some other means.

> b) Do I need to define routines that copy the scattered sections, zero
> out the bss etc if I want to have such services of a loader? 

> Is there a better way to do this?

Yes - do not use the raw binary format.  Stick with the ELF format.  Or 
if you must, choose a simpler format like IHEX or SREC.

Cheers
  Nick