Section type: `sh_type == SHT_STRTAB`.

Common name: "section header string table".

The section name `.shstrtab` is reserved. The standard says:
> This section holds section names.

This section gets pointed to by the `e_shstrnd` field of the ELF header itself.

String indexes of this section are are pointed to by the `sh_name` field of section headers, which denote strings.

This section does not have `SHF_ALLOC` marked, so it will not appear on the executing program.
``
readelf -x .shstrtab hello_world.o
``
outputs:
``
Hex dump of section '.shstrtab':
  0x00000000 002e6461 7461002e 74657874 002e7368 ..data..text..sh
  0x00000010 73747274 6162002e 73796d74 6162002e strtab..symtab..
  0x00000020 73747274 6162002e 72656c61 2e746578 strtab..rela.tex
  0x00000030 7400                                t.
``

The data in this section has a fixed format: http://www.sco.com/developers/gabi/2003-12-17/ch4.strtab.html

If we look at the names of other sections, we see that they all contain numbers, e.g. the `.text` section is number `7`.

Then each string ends when the first NUL character is found, e.g. character `12` is `\0` just after `.text\0`.


 Discussion on ".shstrtab" by Ciro Santilli (@cirosantilli, 35)

 Discussion on "`.shstrtab`" by Ciro Santilli (@cirosantilli, 35)