cof2elf(1) UNIX System V(C Development Set) cof2elf(1)
NAME
cof2elf - COFF to ELF object file translation
SYNOPSIS
cof2elf [-iqV] [-Q{yn}] [-s directory] files
DESCRIPTION
cof2elf converts one or more COFF object files to ELF. This translation
occurs in place, meaning the original file contents are modified. If an
input file is an archive, each member will be translated as necessary,
and the archive will be rebuilt with its members in the original order.
cof2elf does not change input files that are not COFF.
Options have the following meanings.
-i Normally, the files are modified only when full translation
occurs. Unrecognized data, such as unknown relocation types,
are treated as errors and prevent translation. Giving the -i
flag ignores these partial translation conditions and
modifies the file anyway.
-q Normally, cof2elf prints a message for each file it examines,
telling whether the file was translated, ignored, etc. The
-q flag (for quiet) suppresses these messages.
-Qarg If arg is y, identification information about cof2elf will be
added to the output files. This can be useful for software
administration. Giving n for arg explicitly asks for no such
information, which is the default behavior.
-sdirectory As mentioned above, cof2elf modifies the input files. This
option saves a copy of the original files in the specified
directory, which must exist. cof2elf does not save files it
does not modify.
-V This flag tells cof2elf to print a version message on
standard error.
SEE ALSO
ld(1), elf(3E), a.out(4), ar(4)
NOTES
Some debugging information is discarded. Although this does not affect
the behavior of a running program, it may affect the information
available for symbolic debugging.
cof2elf translates only COFF relocatable files. It does not translate
executable or static shared library files for two main reasons. First,
the operating system supports executable files and static shared
libraries, making translation unnecessary. Second, those files have
specific address and alignment constraints determined by the file format.
Matching the constraints with a different object file format is
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cof2elf(1) UNIX System V(C Development Set) cof2elf(1)
problematic.
When possible, programmers should recompile their source code to build
new object files. cof2elf is provided for those times when source code
is unavailable.
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