Linker and Libraries Guide

Base Address

Executable and shared object files have a base address, which is the lowest virtual address associated with the memory image of the program's object file. One use of the base address is to relocate the memory image of the program during dynamic linking.

An executable or shared object file's base address is calculated during execution from three values: the memory load address, the maximum page size, and the lowest virtual address of a program's loadable segment. The virtual addresses in the program headers might not represent the actual virtual addresses of the program's memory image. See "Program Loading (Processor-Specific)".

To compute the base address, you determine the memory address associated with the lowest p_vaddr value for a PT_LOAD segment. You then obtain the base address by truncating the memory address to the nearest multiple of the maximum page size. Depending on the kind of file being loaded into memory, the memory address might not match the p_vaddr values.