Execute 32 bit object file on 64 bit environment

Question

Hi,

I made a cross compiling toolchain for arm-gcc, configuring binutils, newlib, gcc and gdb for the arm-elf target. The problem I am having is, when I compile a program with arm-elf-gcc on my Mac, it generates a 32 bit executable with cannot be executed in the 64 bit environment.

What is the easiest way to circumvent this? I could place the 32 bit executables to an arm environment, but I am interested to know if I could execute the file in my Mac in any way?

--Added--

I should have done this before, but let me inform that the target of my program is a Beagleboard, and I was expecting that I would compile and generate the objects using arm-gcc on my Mac OS X and transfer the *.o to the Beagleboard to view output. Alas, it gives the same error on the Beagleboard as well when I do a ./hello.o.

Thanks,
Sayan

Answer 1

The fact that it's 32-bit is irrelevant - you can't execute ARM code on a Mac (unless you can find some kind of ARM emulator).

Answer 2

There are several issues preventing you from running your executable on a Mac.

1) Architecture. Your Mac is probably an x86/x86_64 machine (or PowerPC) but your binary is compiled for ARM architecture (which is the whole point of using a cross-compiler). These instruction sets are not compatible.

2) Your binary is linked as an ELF object file, whereas Macs use the Mach-O object file format. Your OS cannot load this executable format.

3) Your executable is linked against newlib (for some target which is probably not Mac OS) instead of the Mac OS libc. Your system calls are not correct for this platform.

If your program is a standard unix executable, you may be able to simply compile it with the standard system gcc and it will run. Otherwise, you can run it in an ARM emulator, though this may be pretty complicated to set up.