I was trying out this and I noticed the flags portion of the mach-o header and I was wondering what it did. I tried googling it and found lots of references to it but nothing explaining what the flags are.
If I use otool on a basic hello world compiled clang hello.c then run otool it gives me these flags:
$ otool a.out -h
Mach header
magic cputype cpusubtype caps filetype ncmds sizeofcmds flags
0xfeedfacf 16777223 3 0x80 2 14 664 0x00200085
For Chess.app
Mach header
magic cputype cpusubtype caps filetype ncmds sizeofcmds flags
0xfeedfacf 16777223 3 0x80 2 32 4576 0x00210085
What are the flags here? Where do I find out the answer to things like this?
They're defined and documented in Apple's source code in < mach-o/loader.h >
/* Constants for the flags field of the mach_header */
#define MH_NOUNDEFS 0x1 /* the object file has no undefined
references */
#define MH_INCRLINK 0x2 /* the object file is the output of an
incremental link against a base file
and can't be link edited again */
#define MH_DYLDLINK 0x4 /* the object file is input for the
dynamic linker and can't be staticly
link edited again */
#define MH_BINDATLOAD 0x8 /* the object file's undefined
references are bound by the dynamic
linker when loaded. */
#define MH_PREBOUND 0x10 /* the file has its dynamic undefined
references prebound. */
#define MH_SPLIT_SEGS 0x20 /* the file has its read-only and
read-write segments split */
#define MH_LAZY_INIT 0x40 /* the shared library init routine is
to be run lazily via catching memory
faults to its writeable segments
(obsolete) */
#define MH_TWOLEVEL 0x80 /* the image is using two-level name
space bindings */
#define MH_FORCE_FLAT 0x100 /* the executable is forcing all images
to use flat name space bindings */
#define MH_NOMULTIDEFS 0x200 /* this umbrella guarantees no multiple
defintions of symbols in its
sub-images so the two-level namespace
hints can always be used. */
#define MH_NOFIXPREBINDING 0x400 /* do not have dyld notify the
prebinding agent about this
executable */
#define MH_PREBINDABLE 0x800 /* the binary is not prebound but can
have its prebinding redone. only used
when MH_PREBOUND is not set. */
#define MH_ALLMODSBOUND 0x1000 /* indicates that this binary binds to
all two-level namespace modules of
its dependent libraries. only used
when MH_PREBINDABLE and MH_TWOLEVEL
are both set. */
#define MH_SUBSECTIONS_VIA_SYMBOLS 0x2000/* safe to divide up the sections into
sub-sections via symbols for dead
code stripping */
#define MH_CANONICAL 0x4000 /* the binary has been canonicalized
via the unprebind operation */
#define MH_WEAK_DEFINES 0x8000 /* the final linked image contains
external weak symbols */
#define MH_BINDS_TO_WEAK 0x10000 /* the final linked image uses
weak symbols */
#define MH_ALLOW_STACK_EXECUTION 0x20000/* When this bit is set, all stacks
in the task will be given stack
execution privilege. Only used in
MH_EXECUTE filetypes. */
#define MH_ROOT_SAFE 0x40000 /* When this bit is set, the binary
declares it is safe for use in
processes with uid zero */
#define MH_SETUID_SAFE 0x80000 /* When this bit is set, the binary
declares it is safe for use in
processes when issetugid() is true */
#define MH_NO_REEXPORTED_DYLIBS 0x100000 /* When this bit is set on a dylib,
the static linker does not need to
examine dependent dylibs to see
if any are re-exported */
#define MH_PIE 0x200000 /* When this bit is set, the OS will
load the main executable at a
random address. Only used in
MH_EXECUTE filetypes. */
#define MH_DEAD_STRIPPABLE_DYLIB 0x400000 /* Only for use on dylibs. When
linking against a dylib that
has this bit set, the static linker
will automatically not create a
LC_LOAD_DYLIB load command to the
dylib if no symbols are being
referenced from the dylib. */
#define MH_HAS_TLV_DESCRIPTORS 0x800000 /* Contains a section of type
S_THREAD_LOCAL_VARIABLES */
#define MH_NO_HEAP_EXECUTION 0x1000000 /* When this bit is set, the OS will
run the main executable with
a non-executable heap even on
platforms (e.g. i386) that don't
require it. Only used in MH_EXECUTE
filetypes. */
#define MH_APP_EXTENSION_SAFE 0x02000000 /* The code was linked for use in an
application extension. */
#define MH_NLIST_OUTOFSYNC_WITH_DYLDINFO 0x04000000
/* The external symbols listed in the nlist
symbol table do not include all the symbols
listed in the dyld info. */
#define MH_SIM_SUPPORT 0x08000000 /* Allow LC_MIN_VERSION_MACOS and
LC_BUILD_VERSION load commands with
the platforms macOS, iOSMac,
iOSSimulator, tvOSSimulator and
watchOSSimulator. */