ARM ELF

.rodata and .rodata1—These sections hold read-only data that typically contribute to a non-writable segment in the process image. See Program Header in subsection 3.7.1 for more information.

.shstrtab—This section holds section names.

.strtab—This section holds strings, most commonly only the strings that represent the names associated with symbol table entries. If a file has a loadable segment that includes the symbol string table, the section's attributes will include the SHF_ALLOC bit; otherwise, that bit will be off.

.symtab—This section holds a symbol table, described in section 3.5. If a file has a loadable segment that includes the symbol table, the section's attributes will include the SHF_ALLOC bit; otherwise, that bit will be off.

.text—This section holds the text, or executable instructions, of a program.

Section names with a dot (.) prefix are reserved for the system, although applications may use these sections if their existing meanings are satisfactory. Applications may use names without the prefix to avoid conflicts with system sections. The object file format lets one define sections not in the list above. An object file may have more than one section with the same name.

3.4 String Table

This section describes the default string table. String table sections hold null-terminated character sequences, commonly called strings. The object file uses these strings to represent symbol and section names. One references a string as an index into the string table section. The first byte, which is index zero, is defined to hold a null character. Likewise, a string table's last byte is defined to hold a null character, ensuring null termination for all strings. A string whose index is zero specifies either no name or a null name, depending on the context. An empty string table section is permitted; its section header'ssh_size member would contain zero. Non-zero indexes

are invalid for an empty string table.

A section header'ssh_name member holds an index into the section header’s string table section, as designated by the e_shstrndx member of the ELF header. The following figures show a string table with 25 bytes and the strings associated with various indexes.

Figure 3-14, String Table Indexes