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I've been given an ELF binary file which self describes as PowerPC 64-bit. The e_entry field of the ELF header points to the beginning of a section called .opd. According to this specification, it is supposed to point to a function descriptor. The same specification states that a function descriptor consists of three doublewords (64-bit words).

However, the binary in question (available here) appears to have only two 32-bit words for each function descriptor.

So the question is, why are there 32-bit pointers in this 64-bit binary?

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PS3 (cell) ABI used 64-bit registers but 32-bit pointers. Maybe this sample is from there.

P.S. section names .sceStub.text and .rodata.sceResident definitely point to Sony code (SCE= Sony Computer Entertainment)

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  • Is there any (preferrably documented) way to tell that a file is a PS3 executable, as opposed to a "regular" PPC ELF file with 64-bit pointers? I see no clues in the standard ELF headers. Are there any other ways to determine this, apart from looking at those section names?
    – John Källén
    Apr 17, 2015 at 0:44
  • check e_ident[EI_OSABI].
    – Igor Skochinsky ♦
    Apr 18, 2015 at 14:36

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