Re: [PATCH] strip: keep .ctf section in stripped file

["Guillermo E. Martinez" <guillermo.e.martinez@oracle.com>]

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 2:06:26 AM CDT Mark Wielaard wrote:
Hi, Mark
> 
> On Mon, May 30, 2022 at 09:26:19PM -0500, Guillermo E. Martinez via Elfutils-devel wrote:
> > Hello elfutils team,
> > 
> > This patch is meant to avoid remove the CTF section in
> > stripped files.  Please let me know your thoughts.
> >
> > CTF debug format was designed to be present in stripped files, so
> > this section should not be removed, so a new --remove-ctf option
> > is added to indicate explicitly that .ctf section will be stripped
> > out from binary file.
> 
> First, very nice patch. My only real concern with it is that it should
> describe how the testfile-ctf.bz2 is generated. We don't want really
> random test binaries in the testsuite. There should be at least some
> method to regenerate them, even if we don't automate that. See
> e.g. tests/run-readelf-n.sh which also uses binary test files, but has
> a little description on how each of them was generated.
sure, I will take a look in tests/run-readelf-n.sh to see how it can be
regenerated and update it in patch v2.

> I am CCing Nick Clifton who works on binutils and annobin to check how
> binutils strip handles this. And because we were recently discussing
> putting some annobin data in a special section and how to indicate
> that this section should be explicitly kept or removed. It would be
> great if we could come to some kind of standard way of marking such
> sections so we don't need special arguments for each such section or
> at least have a more generic SECTION_STRIP_P macro.
ok, let me check how strip from binutils keeps by default .ctf section.

> Note, that this might not be possible, these sections might be to
> different/specific that generalizing over them is impossible. But it
> would be good to at least try and discuss it. If only so that elfutils
> eu-strip and binutils strip agree on how to handle/coordinate on such
> special sections.
ok.
[...]

Thanks for your comments!
guillermo