A common platform-independent binary format for object files, libraries and executables, widely used on [UNIX] systems.

----
[AMG]: Here's code to dump the contents of an ELF file, by section.  At present, it only supports 32-bit little-endian ELF, since I don't have any other kind of ELF file on hand to check it against.  It uses code adapted from [Dump a file in hex and ASCII].  There are many section attributes and other headers it could print, but doesn't; it's easy to add support for what you need.  It might not work on stripped binaries.

Reference: [http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/ELF.txt]

======
#!/usr/bin/env tclsh

if {[llength $argv] == 0 || [llength $argv] > 2} {
    puts stderr "Usage: [file tail $argv0] FILENAME ?PATTERN?"
    puts stderr "FILENAME: Name of a 32-bit LE ELF file to dump"
    puts stderr "PATTERN: Glob-style section name match pattern"
    exit 1
}

proc hex {data} {
    set result ""
    for {set i 0} {$i < [string length $data]} {incr i 16} {
        set row [string range $data $i [expr {$i + 15}]]
        binary scan $row H* hex
        set hex [regsub -all {(.{4})} [format %-32s $hex] {\1 }]
        set row [regsub -all {[^[:print:]]} $row .]
        append result [format "%08x: %s %-16s\n" $i $hex $row]
    }
    string range $result 0 end-1
}

proc unsigned {bits args} {
    foreach varname $args {
        upvar 1 $varname var
        set var [expr {$var & ((1 << $bits) - 1)}]
    }
}

proc sections {chan} {
    seek $chan 32
    binary scan [read $chan 4] i shoff
    unsigned 32 shoff

    seek $chan 46
    binary scan [read $chan 12] sss shentsize shnum shstrndx
    unsigned 16 shentsize shnum shstrndx

    seek $chan [expr {$shoff + 16 + $shstrndx * $shentsize}]
    binary scan [read $chan 8] ii strtaboff strtabsize
    unsigned 32 strtaboff strtabsize

    seek $chan $strtaboff
    set strtab [read $chan $strtabsize]

    seek $chan $shoff
    set result {}
    for {set i 0} {$i < $shnum} {incr i} {
        binary scan [read $chan $shentsize] ix12ii name offset size
        unsigned 32 name offset size

        if {[string index $strtab $name] ne "\0"} {
            set end [expr {[string first \0 $strtab $name] - 1}]
            lappend result [string range $strtab $name $end] $offset $size
        }
    }
    return $result
}

proc dumpsections {filename {pattern ""}} {
    set chan [open $filename rb]
    if {[read $chan 7] ne "\177ELF\1\1\1"} {
        error "unsupported format"
    }
    foreach {name offset size} [sections $chan] {
        if {$pattern eq ""} {
            puts $name
        } elseif {[string match $pattern $name]} {
            seek $chan $offset
            puts $name\n[hex [read $chan $size]]
        }
    }
    close $chan
}

dumpsections [lindex $argv 0] [lindex $argv 1]
======

Example:

======none
[andy@toaster|~/dwarf]$ ./dumpsections.tcl test.o
.text
.rel.text
.data
.bss
.debug_abbrev
.debug_info
.rel.debug_info
.debug_line
.rel.debug_line
.debug_macinfo
.debug_loc
.debug_pubnames
.rel.debug_pubnames
.debug_aranges
.rel.debug_aranges
.debug_str
.comment
.note.GNU-stack
.debug_frame
.rel.debug_frame
.shstrtab
.symtab
.strtab
[andy@toaster|~/dwarf]$ ./dumpsections.tcl test.o .debug_str
.debug_str
00000000: 756e 7369 676e 6564 2069 6e74 006c 6f6e  unsigned int.lon
00000010: 676e 616d 6500 6c6f 6e67 2069 6e74 0061  gname.long int.a
00000020: 7267 7600 6172 6763 006d 6169 6e00 6368  rgv.argc.main.ch
00000030: 6172 006e 6578 7400 2f68 6f6d 652f 616e  ar.next./home/an
00000040: 6479 2f64 7761 7266 0074 6573 742e 6300  dy/dwarf.test.c.
00000050: 474e 5520 4320 342e 342e 3400            GNU C 4.4.4.
======

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