ELFRC(1)

💖 ELFRC(1) — the elfrc glow-up 💖

ok so bestie. this is the manual page for the elfrc command, and we're gonna get you fluent in it. it lives in the General Commands Manual section (that's section 1, iykyk). let's go 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

elfrc — a resource compiler for ELF systems 🌈

no fr that's the whole vibe. it compiles resources. into ELF. slay.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

elfrc [-o filename]  [-h filename]  [-v ]

that's it. that's the whole command line. three little flags and the vibe is immaculate 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so real talk: this manual page is just a brief lil rundown of the elfrc command. it's giving "here's the tea, not the whole novel."

and here's the lore 👑 — this manual page was written for the Debian distribution, because the original program literally does not have a manual page. so Debian said "fine, i'll do it myself" and here we are. iconic behaviour honestly.

so what is elfrc? it's a program that can turn arbitrary files into ELF object files. those object files can then be linked into your program directly, and you access them via simple, user-defined symbol names. like. you just get to name your data and grab it. 💖

for instance — and this is the part that makes me feral — it's possible to embed even huge (16MB+) files directly into the executable, and then access the data in constant time, without making the compiler or linker eat loads of memory. the compiler said "i'm not carrying that" and elfrc said "don't worry bestie i got it" 🧚

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

here's what the arguments do, one by one, no skips:

• -o filename — store the resulting ELF object in filename. if you don't pass this one, no ELF object will be generated. so like, if you want an object file, this is kinda mandatory energy.
• -h filename — store a C header file which can be used to access the resource data in filename. if you don't give it, no header file gets generated. your call, bestie.
• -v — be a little verbose about what's going on. a lil chatty. a lil "here's what i'm doing rn." we love a transparent king 👑

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🎀 the actual most important argument 🎀

in any case, the most important argument is resfile — the path to a resource file which can be parsed by elfrc. 👑

and listen: if no resource file is given, or if - (a dash) is given, the resources will be read from the standard input. yes, stdin. pipe it in, babe 🫶

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🍓 what even IS a resource file 🍓

ok so this is the part where people get confused, so pay attention:

a resource file is just a plain text file. each line in the file describes a resource to be compiled into the ELF output. one resource per line, clean, organised, we love structure.

each line is expected to have three fields, and they are separated by tab characters — tabs, not spaces, not vibes, actual tabs:

1. the type of the resource — can be either 'binary' or 'text'
2. the symbol name — this should be a valid C identifier
3. the path to the file to be compiled in

three fields. tab-separated. type, name, path. that's the whole format. periodt 💅

⚠️ bestie warning: the symbol name should be a valid C identifier. this is not a suggestion, this is a "your C compiler will simply Not" situation. don't name your symbol my cool data 🦋 and then act surprised. i'm begging 🙈

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🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

this manual page was written by Kumar Appaiah akumar@ee.iitm.ac.in for the Debian system — but it may be used by others, sharing is caring 💜

permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

and on Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL — go read it if you're a nerd (affectionate) 🎀

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and that's the page!! footer says we're in ELFRC(1) territory — General Commands Manual, written for Debian, elfrc edition. no cap. go embed something huge. 💖✨