Analog Devices EE-110 Technical Notes on ELF and DWARF Formats

About this manual

This application note explains the shift from older file formats (COFF, SDB, AEXE) to industry-standard ELF (Executable and Linking Format) and DWARF-2 (Debugging Information Format) within Analog Devices' VisualDSP development tools. It details how these changes affect users migrating from previous tool versions like 3.3 or 4.0.

What's inside

• Introduction
• ELF Object File Format
• DWARF Debug Information Format
• Previous Formats Comparison
• Object File Implications
• Converting Existing Object Files
• Advantages of ELF Objects
• Advantages of DWARF Debug Information

Specifications

Frequently asked questions

What object file format do VisualDSP SHARC 4.1 tools generate?

VisualDSP SHARC 4.1 and newer tools generate ELF/DWARF-2 object files and executables.

Can I debug COFF objects with the 4.0 SHARC tools?

Yes, the 4.0 VisualDSP debugger could read and debug COFF object files directly without conversion.

What happens to source-level debugging when converting from COFF to ELF/DWARF without source?

You will only have symbol table information; source-level debugging information is lost during the conversion.