summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/lib/libelf/elf_begin.3
blob: 6d9371a9a6f3fcae4b984a3e48f13903a14eec61 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
.\" Copyright (c) 2006 Joseph Koshy.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\"
.\" This software is provided by Joseph Koshy ``as is'' and
.\" any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the
.\" implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose
.\" are disclaimed.  in no event shall Joseph Koshy be liable
.\" for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential
.\" damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods
.\" or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption)
.\" however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict
.\" liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way
.\" out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of
.\" such damage.
.\"
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd June 20, 2010
.Dt ELF_BEGIN 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm elf_begin
.Nd open an ELF file or ar(1) archive
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libelf
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In libelf.h
.Ft "Elf *"
.Fn elf_begin "int fd" "Elf_Cmd cmd" "Elf *elf"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
Function
.Fn elf_begin
is used to open ELF files and
.Xr ar 1
archives for further processing by other APIs in the
.Xr elf 3
library.
It is also used to access individual ELF members of an
.Xr ar 1
archive in combination with the
.Xr elf_next 3
and
.Xr elf_rand 3
APIs.
.Pp
Argument
.Ar fd
is an open file descriptor returned from an
.Xr open 2
system call.
Function
.Fn elf_begin
uses argument
.Ar fd
for reading or writing depending on the value of argument
.Ar cmd .
Argument
.Ar elf
is primarily used for iterating through archives.
.Pp
The argument
.Ar cmd
can have the following values:
.Bl -tag -width "ELF_C_WRITE"
.It ELF_C_NULL
Causes
.Fn elf_begin
to return NULL.
Arguments
.Ar fd
and
.Ar elf
are ignored, and no additional error is signalled.
.It ELF_C_READ
This value is to be when the application wishes to examine (but not
modify) the contents of the file specified by argument
.Ar fd .
It can be used for both
.Xr ar 1
archives and for regular ELF files.
.Pp
Argument
.Ar fd
should have been opened for reading.
If argument
.Ar elf
is NULL, the library will allocate a new ELF descriptor for
the file being processed.
If argument
.Ar elf
is not NULL, and references a regular ELF file previously opened with
.Fn elf_begin ,
then the activation count for
.Ar elf
is incremented.
If argument
.Ar elf
is not NULL, and references a descriptor for an
.Xr ar 1
archive opened earlier with
.Fn elf_begin ,
a descriptor for an element in the archive is returned as
described in the section
.Sx "Processing ar(1) archives"
below.
.It Dv ELF_C_RDWR
The command is used to prepare an ELF file for reading and writing.
It is not supported for archives.
.Pp
Argument
.Ar fd
should have been opened for reading and writing.
If argument
.Ar elf
is NULL, the library will allocate a new ELF descriptor for
the file being processed.
If the argument
.Ar elf
is non-null, it should point to a descriptor previously
allocated with
.Fn elf_begin
with the same values for arguments
.Ar fd
and
.Ar cmd ;
in this case the library will increment the activation count for descriptor
.Ar elf
and return the same descriptor.
Changes to the in-memory image of the ELF file are written back to
disk using the
.Xr elf_update 3
function.
.Pp
This command is not valid for
.Xr ar 1
archives.
.It Dv ELF_C_WRITE
This command is used when the application wishes to create a new ELF
file.
Argument
.Ar fd
should have been opened for writing.
Argument
.Ar elf
is ignored, and the previous contents of file referenced by
argument
.Ar fd
are overwritten.
.El
.Ss Processing ar(1) archives
An
.Xr ar 1
archive may be opened in read mode (with argument
.Ar cmd
set to
.Dv ELF_C_READ )
using
.Fn elf_begin
or
.Fn elf_memory .
The returned ELF descriptor can be passed into to
subsequent calls to
.Fn elf_begin
to access individual members of the archive.
.Pp
Random access within an opened archive is possible using
the
.Xr elf_next 3
and
.Xr elf_rand 3
functions.
.Pp
The symbol table of the archive may be retrieved
using
.Xr elf_getarsym 3 .
.Sh RETURN VALUES
The function returns a pointer to a ELF descriptor if successful, or NULL
if an error occurred.
.Sh EXAMPLES
To iterate through the members of an
.Xr ar 1
archive, use:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
Elf_Cmd c;
Elf *ar_e, *elf_e;
\&...
c = ELF_C_READ;
if ((ar_e = elf_begin(fd, c, (Elf *) 0)) == 0) {
	\&... handle error in opening the archive ...
}
while ((elf_e = elf_begin(fd, c, ar_e)) != 0) {
	\&... process member referenced by elf_e here ...
	c = elf_next(elf_e);
	elf_end(elf_e);
}
.Ed
.Pp
To create a new ELF file, use:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
int fd;
Elf *e;
\&...
if ((fd = open("filename", O_RDWR|O_TRUNC|O_CREAT, 0666)) < 0) {
	\&... handle the error from open(2) ...
}
if ((e = elf_begin(fd, ELF_C_WRITE, (Elf *) 0)) == 0) {
	\&... handle the error from elf_begin() ...
}
\&... create the ELF image using other elf(3) APIs ...
elf_update(e, ELF_C_WRITE);
elf_end(e);
.Ed
.Sh ERRORS
Function
.Fn elf_begin
can fail with the following errors:
.Bl -tag -width "[ELF_E_RESOURCE]"
.It Bq Er ELF_E_ARCHIVE
The archive denoted by argument
.Ar elf
could not be parsed.
.It Bq Er ELF_E_ARGUMENT
An unrecognized value was specified in argument
.Ar cmd .
.It Bq Er ELF_E_ARGUMENT
A non-null value for argument
.Ar elf
was specified when
.Ar cmd
was set to
.Dv ELF_C_RDWR .
.It Bq Er ELF_E_ARGUMENT
The value of argument
.Ar fd
differs from the one the ELF descriptor
.Ar elf
was created with.
.It Bq Er ELF_E_ARGUMENT
Argument
.Ar cmd
differs from the value specified when ELF descriptor
.Ar elf
was created.
.It Bq Er ELF_E_ARGUMENT
An
.Xr ar 1
archive was opened with
.Ar cmd
set to
.Dv ELF_C_RDWR .
.It Bq Er ELF_E_IO
Function
.Fn elf_begin
was unable to truncate a file opened for writing using
.Dv ELF_C_WRITE .
.It Bq Er ELF_E_RESOURCE
An out of memory condition was encountered.
.It Bq Er ELF_E_SEQUENCE
Function
.Fn elf_begin
was called before a working version was established with
.Xr elf_version 3 .
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr elf 3 ,
.Xr elf_end 3 ,
.Xr elf_errno 3 ,
.Xr elf_memory 3 ,
.Xr elf_next 3 ,
.Xr elf_rand 3 ,
.Xr elf_update 3 ,
.Xr gelf 3
OpenPOWER on IntegriCloud