objdump - head ELF - Meaning of flags?

Question

$ objdump -f ./a.out

./a.out:     file format elf32-i386
architecture: i386, flags 0x00000112:
EXEC_P, HAS_SYMS, D_PAGED
start address 0x080484e0


        

Answer 1

They are BFD-specific bitmasks. In the binutils source tree, see bfd/bfd-in2.h:

  /* BFD contains relocation entries.  */
#define HAS_RELOC      0x01

  /* BFD is directly executable.  */
#define EXEC_P         0x02
...
  /* BFD has symbols.  */
#define HAS_SYMS       0x10
...
  /* BFD is dynamically paged (this is like an a.out ZMAGIC file) (the
     linker sets this by default, but clears it for -r or -n or -N).  */
#define D_PAGED        0x100

These flag values won't appear in your object file; they are simply an in-memory representation that libbfd uses.

Answer 2

They are LibBFD flags. You're trying to recode objdump ? ... =)