Programming the Cell Processor: For Games, Graphics, and Computation

Appendix A. Understanding ELF Files

The process of building Cell applications involves a bewildering number of file types: PPU executables, SPU executables, shared libraries, static libraries, object files, and even a special PPU object file format called CESOF (CBE Embedded SPE Object Format). This can be confusing until you see that these files all have the same underlying format: the Executable and Linking Format, or ELF. When you understand the ELF structure, you’ll stop thinking of all the build files as separate file types, and think of them as different variations of a single format.

In addition to explaining ELF structure, this appendix discusses how to read and manipulate ELF files in code. This can be very useful when you create SPU ...