SELFish User Guide

Cross-cutting reference for how SELFish behaves under the hood — command syntax, portable mode, format axes, diagnostic checks, and common error recovery. Per-format pages live alongside; this page covers tool-wide usage.

The Four-Axis Command Line

Packaging in SELFish is always one invocation along four clear axes:

selfish --input <file> --target <generation> --format <format> --output <path>

1. --target <generation>

Sets the platform hardware generation. Never defaulted, because a container stamped with the wrong generation's magic bytes will be rejected by target hardware:

• prospero (PS5)
• orbis (PS4)
• neo (PS4 Pro)
• trinity (PS5 Pro)

2. --format <format>

• eboot: Signed standalone application executable (eboot.bin).
• prx: Platform dynamic shared library (.prx).
• title: Complete retail title directory (eboot.bin, sce_sys/param.json, keystone, icon0.png, nptitle.dat, pfs-version.dat).
• pkg: Encrypted PFS package for installation.
• elf: Stripped and relocated standard ELF.

Paths and Portable Mode

SELFish reads and writes only the paths specified on the command line:

• --output specifies the exact file or directory to produce. Nothing is ever written beside it.
• Portable mode is active by default because selfish has no global registry and writes no host files outside the --output destination.
• When invoked in pipelines, temporary scratch files are placed under the working directory or system temp root without persisting.

Diagnostics & Inspection

SELFish includes built-in diagnostic tools to inspect unknown binaries:

# Inspect container header and segments
selfish container build/eboot.bin

# Inspect NID import hashes
selfish imports build/my_app.elf

# Check relocations
selfish reloc build/my_app.elf

Error Recovery

unsupported relocation type R_X86_64_...

• Cause: The compiler produced position-dependent or TLS relocations.
• Fix: Recompile with -fno-pie -fno-pic -mcmodel=large (included in oops-sdk/common/app.mk).

missing entry point in ELF

• Cause: Linker did not find _start.
• Fix: Ensure entry point is declared as extern "C" void _start(void) in your root translation unit.