Re: [uClinux-dev] ELF and FLAT

From: Greg Ungerer (gerg@moreton.com.au)
Date: Sun Nov 12 2000 - 20:25:15 EST


Hi Gopal,

Gopal Santhanam wrote:
> Can someone please explain clearly the difference between ELF and FLAT?

ELF is an full object file format. FLAT is a simple binary file format.

FLAT files can easily be generated from ELF or COFF files. FLAT format
is designed to be a very light weight application binary format,
no symbols, no debug info, and only a simple small header.

The main advantage to FLAT format is it is much smaller then the
equivilent ELF format file.


> What happens when an ELF binary is converted to FLAT (elf2flt)?

The symbols and debug info are stripped out. A much simpler header
is constructed.


> Also, why do we use use FLAT binaries for uClinux?  It seems that the
> target binaries are compiled PIC.  Why wouldn't ELF binaries work?

ELF binaries could be made to work. Again, the main advantage is file
size.


Regards
Greg


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