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Re: PATCH: Add archive support to ELF
Jakub Jelinek writes:
> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 07:09:10AM -0700, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> > Andrew Cagney <ac131313@redhat.com> writes:
> >
> > > >> Because the whole point of readelf is that it doesn't use the BFD
> > > >> library. In a very real sense, the entire readelf program is a
> > > >> reinvention of the wheel.
> > > > I don't think so. readelf provides much more and detailed ELF
> > > > specific
> > > > information than objdump or nm.
> > > > What harm will readelf using libbfd do? Is someone planning to remove
> > > > libbfd one day and still want to keep readelf.
> > >
> > > Something to note here is that GDB would like access to more detailed
> > > display functions found in readelf. In particular the dwarf2 print
> > > code. Perhaps what's needed is a library that can print detailed
> > > internals and then have both readelf and objdump use it.
> >
> > The original point of BFD was to provide a generic interface to a
> > number of different object file formats.
> >
> > As we move to an ELF-only world, I think it becomes appropriate to
> > write ELF-only tools. readelf is an example of such a tool, not that
> > that is what it was intended to be.
>
> See Ulrich's elfutils, where readelf (built on top of libelf) handles
> archives since the beginning.
Too bad it's not part of the GNU project.
elena
>
> Jakub