CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cgcccompilationexecutable
Nulik
Nulik

Reputation: 7380

Generating a.out file format with GCC

How do I generate the a.out file format with GCC on x86 architectures?

With NASM I can do this easily with the -f flag, for example:

nasm -f aout start.asm
objdump -a start.o

start.o:     file format a.out-i386-linux
start.o

On Linux, compiling .c files produces an ELF object file. How can I produce a.out files with GCC?

Upvotes: 9

Views: 24340

Answers (3)

MK.
MK.

Reputation: 34587

According to the post Re: How can I control the gcc's output format?, you need to build gcc for a different target (i386-aout).

It sounds plausible as a.out has been deprecated for years (10+).

Upvotes: 1

DrGoldfire
DrGoldfire

Reputation: 1026

There are two answers to this question. One is that you'll need to compile a fresh GCC with aout as its target; it's not as simple as flipping a command-line switch. The other answer is a question: why do you actually need this? I can't immediately think of a valid reason.

Upvotes: 0

Quentin Casasnovas
Quentin Casasnovas

Reputation: 1099

To generate the a.out format with gcc, your linker needs to be told to do so. You can do it by passing it flags from gcc thanks to the -Wl flag.

Here is what you would do for the a.out format:

gcc -Wl,--oformat=a.out-i386-linux file.c -o file.out

You can also display all formats supported by typing:

objdump -i

Upvotes: 16

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