The HIWARE Object-File Format is a vendor-specific object-file format defined by HIWARE AG. This compact object-file format produces smaller file sizes than the ELF/DWARF object files. This enables faster file operations. Third-party tool vendors find this compact file size easy to support (for example, emulators from Abatron, Lauterbach, or iSYSTEM). This object-file format supports both ANSI-C and Modula-2.
However, third-party tool vendors must support this object-file format explicitly. Note that there is a lack of extensibility, a lack of debug information, and no C++ support. For example, HIWARE Object-file Format does not support the full flexibility of Compiler Type Management.
Using the HIWARE object-file format may also result in slower source or debug information loading. In the HIWARE object-file format, the source position information is provided as position information (offset in file), and not directly in a file, line, or column format. The debugger must translate this HIWARE object-file source information format into a file, line, or column format. This tends to slow down the source file or debugging information loading process.