GELF_NEWPHDR(3)

📦
version 0.197 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, centos-stream 10, centos-stream 9, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu stonking

💖 GELF_NEWPHDR(3) 💖

ok so like, welcome to the libelf programmer's manual bestie, pull up a chair 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

gelf_newphdr — allocate and initialize a new program header table

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

#include <gelf.h>

void *gelf_newphdr(Elf *elf, size_t phnum);

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

ok so here's the tea, girlboss: gelf_newphdr() makes you a brand new program header table with phnum entries for the ELF descriptor elf, and it zeros out every single entry. clean slate energy ✨

if a program header table already exists for elf? it gets discarded. gone. not your problem anymore 💅

and if phnum is zero, any existing program header table just gets removed entirely. bye babe 🫶

🚨 IMPORTANT bestie: this array is maintained within the ELF descriptor and must NOT be freed directly. do not do it. do not even think about it. 🙈

after you call gelf_newphdr(), any previously obtained program header pointers for the same descriptor become invalid — they're giving expired-milk energy, do not use them 😭

also: an ELF header must exist before you can create a program header table. no ELF header, no table. periodt. 👑

💅 PARAMETERS 💅

  • elf — pointer to an ELF descriptor of kind ELF_K_ELF. that's the vibe check it has to pass.
  • phnum — the number of entries in your new program header table. if it's zero, any existing program header table gets removed. simple as.

⭐ RETURN VALUE ⭐

on success, you get a non-NULL void pointer to the shiny new program header table. slay 💖

you can grab that new table as a GElf_Phdr * using gelf_getphdr(). you can also use elf32_getphdr() or elf64_getphdr() depending on the class of elf. iykyk 🌈

if phnum is 0, then any existing program header table is removed and NULL is returned.

on failure, NULL is returned and elf_errno gets set. classic. 😤

if elf is NULL, then NULL is returned without setting elf_errno — like, it's not even gonna bother.

🌸 lil heads up: other libelf implementations of gelf_newphdr() may use a different return type. so like, don't assume, okay?

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

🎀 ATTRIBUTES 🎀

  • Interface: gelf_newphdr()
  • Attribute: Thread safety
  • Value: MT-Safe
✨ translation: she's MT-Safe, she can hang in multithreaded spaces, no cap 🫶

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

found a bug? tell someone!! report bugs to <elfutils-devel@sourceware.org> or at https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/. they wanna hear it fr fr 💜

ok that's the whole page bestie, you're literally so good at this now 💖✨

this was brought to you by Libelf, dated 2025-09-23, and this iconic lil entry is filed under GELF_NEWPHDR(3). go forth and slay 🧚💅

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