On Fri, 30 Oct 2015, Mulyadi Santosa wrote:
I see something strange in the load_elf_binary.
/* This is the program interpreter used for * shared libraries - for now assume that this * is an a.out format binary */
This comment is in the load_elf_binary. I don't know why it "assume that this is an a.out format binary". a.out and elf are two different file formats.
If I misunderstand something, please let me know. Thanks.
- mudongliang
very likely it refers to "a.out" as default object/executable name produces by gcc, when you don't specify certain name.
FWIW it looks like historical stuff to me, IIUC you could have had a dynamic loader aka interpreter (`ld.so') built as an a.out binary and still serve ELF binaries. See also other a.out in this file and CONFIG_USELIB. This stuff was hairy back in the days. Also: $ cat /usr/doc/ld.so-1.9.11/ld.so.lsm Begin3 Title: Linux shared, dynamic linker and utilities. Version: 1.9.11 Entered-date: 01MAY99 Description: This package contains ld.so, ld-linux.so, ldconfig, ldd and libdl. Keywords: dynamic linker, shared library, ld.so, ld-linux.so, ldconfig, ldd, libdl Author: david@ods.com (David Engel) Maintained-by: david@ods.com (David Engel) Primary-site: tsx-11.mit.edu /pub/linux/packages/GCC ld.so-1.9.11.tar.gz Alternate-site: sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/GCC ld.so-1.9.11.tar.gz Platform: Linux 2.0.0 or later. Copying-policy: Copyrighted but freely distributable. End $ Maciej