How Linux Elf Symbols Work and How They Are Used in C++ and C Programming - Anders Schau Knatten

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How Linux Elf Symbols Work and How They Are Used in C++ and C Programming - Anders Schau Knatten - C++ on Sea 2024
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Knowing how symbols work and how they are used can be very useful. Not only when solving linker errors but also when consuming or creating libraries, and even when creating executables. But most importantly, it is interesting to know how your binaries work!

The talk covers Linux and its ELF symbols in particular, but Windows has some similar concepts. It applies to both C and C++.

In this talk, I'll go over

What symbols are, and why do we need them
Why your program has three different symbol tables
The difference between binding and visibility and how C/C++ linkage relates to the two
Where symbols are stored and how to view them
Global, local, weak, and unique symbols
Allowing users to override your functions/globals
How the linker handles C++ templates and inline variables
Which entities need symbols and which don't
Symbol tables used in static and dynamic linking
Default vs hidden visibility and a useful idiom to work with these
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Slides: https://github.com/philsquared/cppons...

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Anders Schau Knatten

Anders started programming in Turbo Pascal in 1995, and has been programming professionally in various languages since 2001. He's currently a principal engineer at Ascenium in Oslo, working on a new CPU design. He's also the author of the book C++ Brain Teasers, CppQuiz.org and the blog C++ on a Friday.
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