ELF branding / magic numbers

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <20040205103154.GA99852 at rfc-networks.ie>
            Philip Reynolds <philip.reynolds at rfc-networks.ie> writes:
: Ruslan Ermilov <ru at freebsd.org> 35 lines of wisdom included:
: > On Thu, Feb 05, 2004 at 08:39:45AM +0000, Philip Reynolds wrote:
: > [...]
: > > Does the magic number not then support multiple ABI's per system
: > > architecture, or is there some part of the puzzle I'm missing?
: > > 
: > There's an EI_ABIVERSION byte following the EI_OSABI byte, which
: > is both documented in the elf(5) manpage, and is shown in the
: > ``readelf -h'' output.
: 
: You misunderstood me. 
: 
: My question was why is there a need for a PT_NOTE section (which is
: a more convaluted way of branding and reading a brand of an elf
: binary) if the above sections exist?

Because PT_NOTE is more portable and flexible.

Warner