Manual Pages  — GELF

gelf – class-independent API for ELF manipulation

LIBRARY SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION GElf Data Structures GElf Programming Model Namespace use GElf Programming APIs SEE ALSO HISTORY AUTHORS

ELF Access Library (libelf, -lelf)

#include <gelf.h>

This manual page describes a class independent API for manipulating ELF objects. This API allows an application to operate on ELF descriptors without needing to the know the ELF class of the descriptor.

The GElf API may be used alongside the ELF API without restriction.

GElf functions always return a copy of the underlying (class-dependent) ELF data structure. The programming model with GElf is as follows:

1. An application will retrieve data from an ELF descriptor using a gelf_get_*() function. This will copy out data into a private GElf_* data structure.
2. The application will work with its private copy of the GElf structure.
3. Once done, the application copies the new values back to the underlying ELF data structure using the gelf_update_*() functions.
4. The application will then use the elf_flag*() APIs to indicate to the ELF library that an ELF data structure is dirty.

When updating an underlying 32 bit ELF data structure, the GElf routines will signal an error if a GElf value is out of range for the underlying ELF data type.

The GElf interface uses the following symbols:

GElf_*
	Class-independent data types.
gelf_*
	For functions defined in the API set.

This section provides an overview of the GElf programming APIs. Further information is provided in the manual page of each function listed here.

Allocating ELF Data Structures
gelf_newehdr()	Allocate a new ELF Executable Header.
gelf_newphdr()	Allocate a new ELF Program Header Table.

Data Translation
gelf_xlatetof()	Translate the native representation of an ELF data structure to its file representation.
gelf_xlatetom()	Translate from the file representation of an ELF data structure to a native representation.

Retrieving ELF Data
gelf_getchdr()	Retrieve an ELF Compression Header from the underlying ELF descriptor.
gelf_getdyn()	Retrieve an ELF .dynamic table entry.
gelf_getehdr()	Retrieve an ELF Executable Header from the underlying ELF descriptor.
gelf_getphdr()	Retrieve an ELF Program Header Table entry from the underlying ELF descriptor.
gelf_getrel()	Retrieve an ELF relocation entry.
gelf_getrela()	Retrieve an ELF relocation entry with addend.
gelf_getshdr()	Retrieve an ELF Section Header Table entry from the underlying ELF descriptor.
gelf_getsym()	Retrieve an ELF symbol table entry.

Queries
gelf_checksum()	Retrieves the ELF checksum for an ELF descriptor.
gelf_fsize()	Retrieves the size of the file representation of an ELF type.
gelf_getclass()	Retrieves the ELF class of an ELF descriptor.

Updating ELF Data
gelf_update_dyn()	Copy back an ELF .dynamic Table entry.
gelf_update_phdr()	Copy back an ELF Program Header Table entry.
gelf_update_rel()	Copy back an ELF relocation entry.
gelf_update_rela()	Copy back an ELF relocation with addend entry.
gelf_update_shdr()	Copy back an ELF Section Header Table entry.
gelf_update_sym()	Copy back an ELF symbol table entry.

The gelf API first appeared in AT&T V.4 . This implementation of the API first appeared in FreeBSD 7.0 .

The GElf API was implemented by Joseph Koshy <Mt jkoshy@FreeBSD.org>.