readelf: Save and dump the original section header values
Project / Subsystem
binutils / readelf
Date
2026-07-04
Proposer
"H.J. Lu" <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
Source type
public_inbox
Consensus
Proposed
Sentiment
—/10
Technical tradeoffs
- • Adds memory overhead to store original section header data, but this is managed by on-demand allocation.
- • Improves debuggability of malformed object files at the cost of slightly increased complexity in `readelf`.
All attributes
- project
- binutils
- subsystem
- readelf
- patch_id
- —
- discussion_id
- CAMe9rOrai4QD0Jq52-Zsd=hBNe9k2KnaqLZ7022yW=+8n_dX9w@mail.gmail.com
- source_type
- public_inbox
- title
- readelf: Save and dump the original section header values
- headline
- readelf: Save and dump original section header values
- tldr
- Preserve and display original section header values in readelf to aid debugging of malformed object files.
- proposer
- "H.J. Lu" <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
- consensus
- Proposed
- outcome
- proposed
- sentiment_score
- —
- technical_tradeoffs
-
- • Adds memory overhead to store original section header data, but this is managed by on-demand allocation.
- • Improves debuggability of malformed object files at the cost of slightly increased complexity in `readelf`.
- series_id
- —
- series_role
- cover
- series_parts
- []
- tags
-
- • binutils
- • readelf
- • debugging
- • elf
- bugzilla_url
- —
- date
- 2026-07-04T00:00:00.000Z
readelf: Save and dump the original section header values
This patch for readelf introduces functionality to save and display the original, potentially garbage, section header values before they are cleaned up or validated. This is intended to aid debugging by making inconsistent or incorrect header data visible when dumping section headers, helping to diagnose issues in malformed object files. The changes involve adding a new field to store these original values and a function to save them, with a modification to clear this storage on demand.