This is the first alpha release if libelf, a free ELF object file access library. This code is far from being perfect. If you have problems with applications that use libelf and work with the commercial (SVR4, Solaris) version but not with this one, please contact me. The one most people asked for (elk-2.2) works fine, I'm using it myself. Installation is straightforward - the package is autoconf'ed. Just do "cd libelf-; ./configure; make; make install". Header files will be installed in .../include/libelf. If your system does not provide its own version of libelf.h, nlist.h or elf.h, these headers are installed in .../include, too. "make install" may overwrite your system's version of libelf, though - be careful! If you are running an ELF Linux system, you can build and install the shared version of libelf by running "make shared; make install-shared". Other systems will require changes in .../shared/Makefile.in. The static version of the library compiles on Linux (ELF and a.out), Solaris and SunOS (GCC required). This package supports XPG3 style message catalogs, but there are no message files included in the distribution (yet). You can create an english message file suitable for gencat(1) by running "make libelf.m". It is meant as a starting point for translators and is not installed. You can turn off NLS support by passing "--disable-nls" to configure. Missing things: - There is no documentation. - The COFF file format is not understood (see elf_kind(3)). - nlist(3) is incomplete; the n_type and n_sclass members of struct nl are set to zero even if type information is available. - Unlike the commercial version, this library does not use mmap(2). Michael Riepe