mcs(1)							      General Commands Manual							    mcs(1)

NAME

       mcs - Manipulates object file comment sections

SYNOPSIS

       mcs [-v] [-V] [[-a|r|R  data] | [-D key] | [-d] ] [-t tag] [-g flags] [-p] obj1...objN

OPTIONS

       Add  a  new  subsection	or  append  to existing subsection data. By default, the data is treated as a character string and appended to the
       generic string space subsection. Use -t to specify a subsection.  Delete a subsection. Use -t to specify the subsection that  you  want	to
       delete.	 Delete one entry within a subsection. Use -t to specify the subsection that this operation applies to. Currently, this option can
       only be used with the system subsections TAGDESC and TOOLVER.  Set tag descriptor flags for a subsection. Use -t to specify the subsection.
       If flag settings already exist for this tag value, they are overwritten by the new settings.  Print a subsection or the entire comment sec-
       tion. By default, the whole section is dumped. Use -t to specify a subsection. By default, raw data is dumped in hexadecimal. Special  for-
       matting can be used for system-defined subsections.

	      Use with -v to view contents symbolically.

	      This  option  produces  the  same  output as odump -cm. Use odump -j to view compact relocations data stored in the comment section.
	      Replace subsection data. Use -t to specify the subsection that you want to replace. The same data interpretation applies to both	-r
	      and  -a.	 Replace  one entry of a subsection with the given data. Use -t to specify the subsection that this applies to. Currently,
	      this option can only be used with the system subsections TAGDESC and TOOLVER.  Specify subsection. Within an  object,  a	tag  is  a
	      unique  identifier;  only one subsection is permitted of each tag type.  Produce verbose output. Can be used with -p.  Print version
	      information for the mcs tool.

OPERANDS

       Character string.  Character strings containing white space must be enclosed in quotes.

	      For certain subsections, specially formatted data is accepted. See Special Sections for more information.  Unique identifier for	an
	      entry  within  a	subsection.  See  Special  Sections for more information.  An unsigned integer value or a system-defined tag name.
	      Comma-separated tag descriptor flag names. See Special Sections for more information.  A Tru64 UNIX object file that contains a com-
	      ment  section  header. Archive files are not supported. The object file can be a file, an executable, or a shared library. It can be
	      either compressed or uncompressed.

DESCRIPTION

       The mcs command allows users to perform operations on the comment section (.comment) of Compaq (e)COFF object files. The comment section of
       an  object can contain information such as the "ident" string from a source file and other information used by components of the Tru64 UNIX
       development environment. Users can optionally add their own information to the comment section by using the mcs tool.

   Special Symbols
       Definitions for symbols related to the comment section are located in /usr/include/scncomment.h. The symbols recognized by mcs  are  short-
       ened forms of the names defined in the header file.  The symbols consist of the names of system-defined tags and tag descriptor flags.

       System-defined tag names can be used with the -t option to specify a subsection. These tags are:

       CMSTAMP COMPACT_RLC STRSPACE TAGDESC IDENT TOOLVER LINKERDEF

       Tag  descriptor	flag  names  can be used with the -g option to specify how other tools should treat a specified subsection. The flag names
       recognized by mcs are:

       KEEP STRIP LSTRIP APPEND CHOOSE DELETE ERRMULT ERROR COPY

       See Special Sections for more information on the TAGDESC and TOOLVER subsections.

   Special Sections
       Processing of the TAGDESC and TOOLVER subsections differs from other sections due to the following factors: The -R and -D  options  can	be
       used  for  per-entry operations.  The data entry format is unique.  System tools that create or modify objects rely on tag descriptor flags
       in the TAGDESC section to know how to process subsections that are not recognized by the tool. This allows new subsection types to be added
       without requiring changes to system tools that control how they process the new subsections.

	      Three sets of flags are supported:

	      --------------------------
	      Strip    Combine	 Modify
	      --------------------------
	      KEEP     APPEND	 COPY
	      STRIP    CHOOSE	 DELETE
	      LSTRIP   DELETE	 ERROR
		       ERRMULT
		       ERROR
	      --------------------------

	      The "strip" flags tell the linker or stripping tools what subsections belong in a stripped or locally-stripped object: KEEP means do
	      not strip.  STRIP means delete if removing the symbol table.  LSTRIP means delete if removing local symbol information.

	      The "combine" flags tell tools such as the linker and mcs how to combine data from multiple input  subsections  of  the  same  type:
	      APPEND  means to concatenate raw data for each subsection.  CHOOSE means to choose one (random) subsection's data.  DELETE tells the
	      tools that this subsection does not belong in an output object.  ERRMULT means raise an error if multiple instances of the tag value
	      are found.  ERROR means raise an error if the tag value identifies an unknown subsection type.

	      The "modify" flags tell a tool that is modifying a single object what to do with subsections it does not understand: COPY means out-
	      put a subsection identical to the one found in the input object.	DELETE means do not output the subsection.  ERROR means  raise	an
	      error if a subsection of this type is encountered.

	      One value from each set is defined for each subsection. The default flag settings are KEEP, APPEND, COPY.

	      Flags  are  specified  symbolically  on  the command line. The accepted format is a comma-separated list of three flag names with no
	      white space.  For example, the default flag setting for a subsection with the tag TAG# is specified as follows:

	      mcs -t TAG# -gKEEP,APPEND,COPY obj

	      The key for a TAGDESC entry is the tag value being described.  The TOOLVER subsection accepts data of the form:  tool_name,tool_ver-
	      sion_number,version_string

	      The  variables  tool_name  and version_string are character strings, and tool_version_number is a numeric value. For example, to add
	      tool version information for a program named mytool, the command is:

	      mcs -t TOOLVER -a "mytool,0,"Beta, 1/1/99 obj

	      This creates a new entry for the tool named mytool in the TOOLVER subsection. To update this entry, use the -R option:

	      mcs -t TOOLVER -R "mytool,1,"SSB, 1/1/99 obj

	      Note that double quotes have to be passed through the shell for strings containing white space or commas. Make sure that the separa-
	      tor commas have no spaces around them.

	      The key for the TOOLVER entry is the tool name.

EXAMPLES

       The comment section of an executable file might appear as follows:

       % mcs -pv objname

	  Tag		 Length      Value     Flags: Strip Combine Modify
	  CMSTAMP	 0x0	     0x0	      KEEP CHOOSE COPY
	  COMPACT_RLC	 0x208	     0x30	      STRIP DELETE DELETE

	       --- freeform data ---

		       Use odump -j to view compact relocations.

	       ---- end data ---

	  END		 0x0	     0x0	      KEEP CHOOSE COPY

       If you want to delete compact relocations: % mcs -d -t COMPACT_RLC objname

       If you want to add a subsection and specify flags for it: % mcs -a DATA -t10 -g STRIP,APPEND,COPY objname

       The new subsection, identified by a tag value of 10, contains the string "DATA" in its associated freeform data. The flag settings indicate
       that the section should be stripped if the symbol table is removed, have data appended if objects with this section are linked or otherwise
       combined, and left unchanged by an object modifier.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The  following  environment variables affect the execution of mcs: If set, this path is used for the creation of a temporary file. A tempo-
       rary file is used if an input object is compressed.

SEE ALSO

       Commands:  odump(1)

																	    mcs(1)