Windows

I recently implemented BigObj COFF file parsing in cgo (golang/go#24341). In the process, I quickly discovered that Microsoft doesn’t document the binary format anywhere. Their official documentation is the only reference they have to BigObj as far as I can tell, and it doesn’t say anything about the binary format. I didn’t see any other blogs or resources covering this topic either. I figured it out by reading binutils and LLVM source code, so I’m documenting what I learned while the knowledge is still fresh in my memory. ...

When developing console applications, the Windows “Legacy Console” can be a handy tool. It behaves like the console present in Windows XP, allowing me to test how applications behave in this environment. This makes it simple to test compatibility, without having to painstakingly copy what I’m running over to Windows XP, and ensure it is compiled correctly for that target. When I went to do this with conhost on Windows 11, I was met with an unpleasant surprise: ...