commit: 56b901203468bdc7a5d2228f447ed439a224cfa7
parent 1237f46a41c8344ec7b8fac35acb590402647f6c
Author: Haelwenn (lanodan) Monnier <contact@hacktivis.me>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 00:19:25 +0100
notes/buildsystems-conventions: AS, CPP, LD, STRIP, STRINGS, NM, READELF, OBJCOPY, OBJDUMP
Diffstat:
1 file changed, 31 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
diff --git a/notes/buildsystems-conventions.shtml b/notes/buildsystems-conventions.shtml
@@ -16,14 +16,14 @@
<h3>POSIX</h3>
<dl>
<dt><var>CC</var></dt>
- <dd>Command/path to target C Compiler</dd>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform C Compiler</dd>
<dt><var>CFLAGS</var></dt>
<dd>
- Flags passed to target C Compiler.<br />
+ Flags passed to target platform C Compiler.<br />
Should not be expected to contain values such as <code>-std=c99</code>.
</dd>
<dt><var>LDFLAGS</var></dt>
- <dd>Linking flags passed to target Compiler</dd>
+ <dd>Linking flags passed to target platform Compiler</dd>
<dt><var>YACC</var></dt>
<dd>Command/path to <code>yacc(1)</code></dd>
@@ -44,9 +44,9 @@
</dd>
<dt><var>FC</var></dt>
- <dd>Command/path to target Fortran Compiler</dd>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform Fortran Compiler</dd>
<dt><var>FFLAGS</var></dt>
- <dd>Flags passed to target Fortran Compiler</dd>
+ <dd>Flags passed to target platform Fortran Compiler</dd>
</dl>
<h3>Common across autotools, CMake, meson</h3>
@@ -67,13 +67,35 @@
<dt><var>PKG_CONFIG</var></dt>
<dd>
- Command/path to target <code>pkg-config(1)</code> implementation.<br />
+ Command/path to target platform <code>pkg-config(1)</code> implementation.<br />
Present in freedesktop.org pkg-config and pkgconf <code>pkg.m4</code>, as well as supported by CMake and meson.
</dd>
</dl>
<h3>Widespread but nor formally specified</h3>
<dl>
+ <dt><var>AS</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform assembler</dd>
+ <dt><var>CPP</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform C preprocessor (ie. <code>${CC} -E</code>)</dd>
+ <dt><var>LD</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform linker</dd>
+ <dt><var>STRIP</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform executable sections stripper (such as debug symbols)</dd>
+ <dt><var>STRINGS</var></dt>
+ <dd>
+ Command/path to target platform strings extractor.<br />
+ Note: Rather questionable whether it should treat sections differently, and doing such filtering has been source of parser vulnerabilities.
+ </dd>
+ <dt><var>NM</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform executable symbols extractor</dd>
+ <dt><var>READELF</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform ELF reader</dd>
+ <dt><var>OBJCOPY</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform object copier</dd>
+ <dt><var>OBJDUMP</var></dt>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform object dumper</dd>
+
<dt><var>RANLIB</var></dt>
<dd>
Command/path to <code>ranlib(1)</code>.<br />
@@ -83,7 +105,7 @@
<!-- Linux Kernel -->
<dt><var>CROSS_COMPILE</var></dt>
<dd>
- Command prefix before default values of target-specific commands like <var>CC</var>, <var>AR</var>, <var>FC</var>, <var>RANLIB</var>, …<br />
+ Command prefix before default values of target platform-specific commands like <var>CC</var>, <var>AR</var>, <var>FC</var>, <var>RANLIB</var>, …<br />
For example it can be set to <samp><code>CROSS_COMPILE=x86_64-pc-linux-musl-</code></samp>
</dd>
@@ -95,7 +117,7 @@
<!-- Linux Kernel -->
<dt><var>CXX</var></dt>
- <dd>Command/path to target C++ Compiler</dd>
+ <dd>Command/path to target platform C++ Compiler</dd>
<dt><var>HOSTCXX</var></dt>
<dd>Command/path to build host C++ Compiler</dd>
<dt><var>HOSTCXXFLAGS</var></dt>
@@ -104,7 +126,7 @@
<!-- mksh, own projects -->
<dt><var>LDSTATIC</var></dt>
<dd>
- Flag(s) to enable static linking passed to target compiler when building executables.<br />
+ Flag(s) to enable static linking passed to target platform compiler when building executables.<br />
For example <samp><code>LDSTATIC=-static</code></samp>
</dd>
</dl>
