Libelf by Example

This tutorial introduces libelf, a library for reading and writing object code in the Extensible Linking Format (ELF) file format.
- Getting started with libelf: obtaining a handle to an ELF object, establishing a working ELF version, and handling errors reported by libelf.
- How ELF data structures are laid out in-memory and on disk, the notions of "file representation" and "memory representation", how to write applications that can handle non-native binaries.
- ELF Segments and the ELF Program Header Table, retrieving the program header table from an ELF executable and the meaning of the fields of a program header table entry.
- How data is stored inside ELF sections, the ELF Section Header Table, and how to traverse the sections in an ELF object.
- How to create new ELF objects: the rules for ordering individual API calls, the default object layout implemented by libelf, and how to specify custom layouts.
- ar archives: their structure, and how to read the contents of these archives using the APIs provided by libelf.

The example programs in this tutorial are written in the C programming language.

While written for the libelf implementation that is part of the Elftoolchain open-source project, this tutorial is expected to be compatible with other libelf implementations, such as that offered by the GNU project.