[Gllug] ELF, LSB [...] , stripped

[Pete Ryland]

On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 08:45:25PM +0100, Dylan wrote:
> On Sunday 20 October 2002 19:14, Nix wrote:
> > Much older than that. It wasn't a format inasmuch as a lump of binary
> > data and conventions about how to use this mess to build shared
> > libraries (which was most unpleasant).
> >
> > ELF, on the other hand, *is* a properly designed format, and a damned
> > nice one too. Much nicer than that COFF monster.
> 
> What was/is the COFF monster (is it anything like the closet monster, or 
> cookie monster even?)

Common Object File Format is what it stands for.  aka 'a.out' format.  On
Linux, it was superceded by ELF around 1995/6-ish, IIRC.

> > > as said, little-endian.  that is, least-significant bit first.  other
> > > possibility is MSB i.e. big-endian.  for more info about endianness,
> > > see http://www.google.com/search?q=endianness&btnI=yes
> 
> In view of this, is there a kernel/libc/watever function to do the 
> transposition, and if not why not?

htons and friends will convert host order (LSB on x86) to network order
(MSB) and back.

Pete

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