# String table (ivss)

A **string table** stores names as zero-terminated byte sequences. Symbol and section records refer to those names by byte offset rather than storing a separate pointer or fixed-width name in every entry.

The beginning of `.strtab` for the [[ivss-object-files|reference object]] is:

```text
Byte offset    String
0              ""
1              ".strtab"
9              ".symtab"
17             "target"
24             "my_data"
32             "slot"
37             ".relamy_data"
```

Each next offset includes the preceding string's terminating zero. For example, `target` occupies seven bytes including its terminator, so the following name begins at offset twenty-four.

ivss uses `Elf_AddUniqueString()` to reuse a name already present and append it otherwise. `Elf_Sym.st_name` and section-header `sh_name` values select entries from this shared storage.

The human-readable string dump numbers strings by ordinal position; those printed numbers are not their byte offsets. Thus `target` can appear as string number three while its symbol record contains `st_name = 17`. Distinguishing these indices avoids interpreting the name field as a symbol number or memory address.

Source: [elf.c](https://github.com/yanevskiv/ivss/blob/main/src/elf.c).