EC
ELIBSCN
Linux / POSIXERRORCriticalProcessHIGH confidence

.lib Section in a.out Corrupted

Production Risk

Extremely rare; a.out format is not used in modern Linux.

What this means

ELIBSCN (errno 81) is returned when the .lib section of an a.out executable (old binary format) is corrupted. Extremely rare on modern Linux with ELF binaries.

Why it happens
  1. 1a.out binary has a corrupted .lib section listing shared libraries
How to reproduce

Executing a corrupted a.out binary (historical).

trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
// errno = ELIBSCN from corrupted a.out .lib section

expected output

.lib section in a.out corrupted (ELIBSCN)

Fix

Recompile as an ELF binary

WHEN If maintaining legacy a.out code

Recompile as an ELF binary
# Modern Linux uses ELF — recompile without a.out flags
gcc -o myprogram myprogram.c
# (ELF is now the default; no special flags needed)

Why this works

ELF format has no .lib section; recompiling as ELF eliminates this error class.

Sources
Official documentation ↗

Linux Programmer Manual errno(3)

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