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# The XCOFF Object File Format

The IBM RS/6000 running AIX uses an object file format called xcoff. The COFF sections, symbols, and line numbers are used, but debugging symbols are dbx-style stabs whose strings are located in the ``.debug'` section (rather than the string table). For more information, See section `Top' in The Stabs Debugging Format, and search for XCOFF.

The shared library scheme has a nice clean interface for figuring out what shared libraries are in use, but the catch is that everything which refers to addresses (symbol tables and breakpoints at least) needs to be relocated for both shared libraries and the main executable. At least using the standard mechanism this can only be done once the program has been run (or the core file has been read).

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