Re: what about new feature for objcopy

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Victor,

> Thanks for your e-mail. I really need such a feature because some 
> libraries on Linux (for example Intel/IPP 4.1)
> contain some external functions like names and without correct sizes. 

Really if these libraries contain incorrect information and they are 
distributed in a binary-only format then you should complain to the 
people distributing them.  They should not be distributing broken libraries.

One alternative is to use a hex editor to change the sizes directly.  Of 
course this does mean that you will need to locate where those sizes are 
held in the binary, which is not that easy since the symbol structure 
stores its name as an index into a string section.  You would have to 
compute the relevant index, then search for that binary pattern in the 
symbol table section and then look at the appropriate offset from the 
index for the size and check to see that it is the current (bad) value 
before modifying it.

> But implementation, I am sure is very simple.

he he - funny joke.  Seriously things like this are rarely simple 
although it may appear that way at first.  For example the syntax for a 
general symbol editing command line switch would have to be pretty 
complicated.  Changing the name, size, value, attributes, section etc.

Of course you just want to change the size you could have:

  --set-symbol-size SYM=SIZE

But the real problem is time - or rather lack of it.  It would be nice 
to implement such a feature but I just do not have the time to do it. 
Maybe somebody else will volunteer, but if not then it will be up to 
you.  Sorry, I know that is not what you want to hear, but that is the 
way that it is.

Cheers
  Nick