<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 2007-2010 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies) All rights reserved. -->
<!-- This component and the accompanying materials are made available under the terms of the License 
"Eclipse Public License v1.0" which accompanies this distribution, 
and is available at the URL "http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html". -->
<!-- Initial Contributors:
    Nokia Corporation - initial contribution.
Contributors: 
-->
<!DOCTYPE concept
  PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">
<concept id="GUID-33716081-180C-5DDB-A5D2-0EC61357250D" xml:lang="en"><title>How
to use the post-linker (elf2e32)</title><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>
<p>The post-linker is a Symbian-specific build tool. Its principal function
is to create executables (DLLs and EXEs) in the particular format required
by Symbian platform, known as the <i>E32Image</i> format. Commercial compiler
and linkers, such as ARM's RVCT and GNU GCC, cannot directly generate that
format. Such compilers do however support a standard output format called
the Executable and Linking Format (ELF) (defined at <xref href="http://www.caldera.com/developers/gabi/" scope="external">http://www.caldera.com/developers/gabi/</xref>). A tool is
therefore needed to convert from the ELF format into the E32Image format,
and this is the key role of the post-linker. The tool also contains the functionality
to maintain and create the DEF files used for freezing the exports of libraries. </p>
<p>In ordinary use, the post-linker is not used directly by users. It is called
from the makefiles generated by <filepath>abld</filepath> on the command line,
or from the build commands of an IDE. </p>
<p>The tool can also be used to <xref href="GUID-6A5D3E05-B1F4-4DF6-9384-3CC471DCC267.dita">output
a description</xref> of an existing E32Image file for analysis. </p>
<p>This section contains the following topics:</p>
<ul>
<li><xref href="GUID-17C80FD1-0D2D-4A65-B199-FE2405AA7B77.dita">Post Linker Overview</xref></li>
<li><xref href="GUID-9605B59D-F9DB-4BA3-8C87-1C5205976CBB.dita">How to create executables</xref></li>
<li><xref href="GUID-5EF18ADF-018B-47BA-B60C-269EF2C9FF48.dita">How to create a
DSO library file from a DEF file</xref></li>
<li><xref href="GUID-6A5D3E05-B1F4-4DF6-9384-3CC471DCC267.dita">How to dump an
E32Image file</xref></li>
</ul>
</conbody><related-links>
<link href="GUID-CAC07A47-1475-5152-83AA-E59FD3AFF321.dita"><linktext>elf2e32 command
syntax</linktext></link>
<link href="GUID-75AFF4B9-1F95-585E-9354-EAA6271251FA.dita"><linktext>Troubleshooting
post-linker (elf2e32) errors</linktext></link>
</related-links></concept>