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Re: RFC [PATCH] Use .strtab section for section name strings
- From: Alan Modra <amodra at gmail dot com>
- To: Cary Coutant <ccoutant at gmail dot com>
- Cc: "H.J. Lu" <hjl dot tools at gmail dot com>, Binutils <binutils at sourceware dot org>
- Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 10:24:40 +0930
- Subject: Re: RFC [PATCH] Use .strtab section for section name strings
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <20150628000035 dot GA30222 at intel dot com> <20150629042319 dot GE1723 at bubble dot grove dot modra dot org> <CAJimCsFCjv+K7z7nJhVgXkDA_C7XqYotFPbj_t_71VPL=sOaJg at mail dot gmail dot com>
On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 11:26:24PM -0700, Cary Coutant wrote:
> >> Here is a patch to use .strtab section for section name strings if
> >> there are symbols, otherwise use .shstrtab section.
> >
> > I think this is a bad idea.
> > ...
> > The great majority of object files won't see as much benefit. I
> > reckon shared libraries and executables will only show very small
> > decreases, at the cost of violating the ELF gABI.
>
> To be fair, I don't think this would violate the spirit of the ELF
> spec.
You may be correct, but how will this play with utilities that modify
binaries, eg. objcopy/strip? Particularly if someone uses an older
objcopy/strip with one of these newfangled binaries. I guess
objcopy/strip might just happen to work due to BFD hiding away details
like .strtab and .shstrtab, but I'm not sure. elfutils ought to be
checked too.
--
Alan Modra
Australia Development Lab, IBM