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Smallest Possible ELF Executable?

Posted by michael on from the mine-is-bigger-than-yours dept.

taviso writes "I recently stumbled across this paper (google cache), where the author investigates the smallest possible ELF executable on linux, some interesting stuff, and well worth a read. The author concludes, 'every single byte in this executable file can be accounted for and justified. How many executables have you created lately that you can say that about?'

1 of 451 comments (clear)

  1. Re:umm.... yeah? by mbogosian · · Score: 2, Troll

    Assembled, it came to something like 35 bytes. In C++, it took over 10K.

    Obviously you weren't using the ELF format then:

    There is no getting around the fact that the 45th byte in the file, which specifies the number of entries in the program header table, needs to be non-zero, needs to be present, and needs to be in the 45th position from the start of the ELF header.

    Maybe ELF is just too inefficient. :)

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    moto411.com