This page is a copy of the Archive.org copy of the now no longer availabel http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~charngda/elf.html . It is kept here online as a reference only. Acronyms relevant to Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) ABI Application binary interface a.out Assembler output file format BSS Block started by symbol. The uninitialized data segment containing statically-allocated variables. COFF Common object file format DTV Dynamic thread vector (for TLS) DWARF A standardized debugging data format GD Global Dynamic (dynamic TLS) One of the Thread-Local Storage access models . GOT Global offset table IE Initial Executable (static TLS with assigned offsets) One of the Thread-Local Storage access models . LD Local Dynamic (dynamic TLS of local symbols) One of the Thread-Local Storage access models . LE Local Executable (static TLS) One of the Thread-Local Storage access models . Mach-O Mach object file format PC Program counter. On x86, this is the same as IP (