1 Introduction

This manual documents the pickles shipped in the poke-elf package. It not only describes the data structures implemented in these pickles, but also shows examples of techniques to how to make best use of them.

1.1 Who is this manual for?

This manual assumes that the reader is familiar with both the poke program and the Poke programming language.

1.2 Approach used to describe Poke data structures

When describing Poke types (such as for example Elf64_Chdr) this manual takes the approach of first showing a simplified or stripped-out version of the type, like this:

type Elf64_Chdr =
  struct
  {
    Elf_Word ch_type;
    Elf_Word ch_reserved;
    offset<Elf64_Xword,B> ch_size;
    offset<Elf64_Xword,B> ch_addralign;
  };

Generally speaking, these stripped versions of the type do not contain comments, constraints, variables, functions nor methods. However, there are exceptions to this rule in the particular cases where we want to draw your attention to some particular aspect involving some constraint, method, etc.

Following the simplified version of the type, its fields get discussed in detail. Then, the overall data structure gets discussed, and examples on how to use it to poke at data are shown. Finally, the methods offered by the type, if any, are described in detail along with usage examples.