source: appendixa/binutils-desc.xml@ e2ce375

<sect2><title>Contents of Binutils</title>

<para>Last checked against version &binutils-contversion;.</para>

<sect3><title>Program Files</title>

<para>addr2line, ar, as, gprof, ld, nm, objcopy, objdump, 
ranlib, readelf, size, strings and strip</para></sect3>

<sect3><title>Descriptions</title>

<sect4><title>addr2line</title>
<para>addr2line translates program addresses into file names and line numbers. 
Given an address and an executable, it uses the debugging information in 
the executable to figure out which file name and line number are associated 
with a given address.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>ar</title>
<para>The ar program creates, modifies, and extracts from archives. An archive 
is a single file holding a collection of other files in a structure that makes 
it possible to retrieve the original individual files (called members of 
the archive).</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>as</title>
<para>as is primarily intended to assemble the output of the GNU C compiler,
 gcc, for use by the linker ld.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>gprof</title>
<para>gprof displays call graph profile data.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>ld</title>
<para>ld combines a number of object and archive files, relocates their data 
and ties up symbol references. Often the last step in building a new compiled 
program to run is a call to ld.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>nm</title>
<para>nm lists the symbols from object files.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>objcopy</title>
<para>objcopy utility copies the contents of an object file to another. objcopy 
uses the GNU BFD Library to read and write the object files. It can write 
the destination object file in a format different from that of the source
object file.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>objdump</title>
<para>objdump displays information about one or more object files. The options 
control what particular information to display. This information is mostly 
useful to programmers who are working on the compilation tools, as opposed to
programmers who just want their program to compile and work.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>ranlib</title>
<para>ranlib generates an index to the contents of an archive, and stores it in 
the archive. The index lists each symbol defined by an archive member
that is a relocatable object file.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>readelf</title>
<para>readelf displays information about elf type binaries.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>size</title>
<para>size lists the section sizes --and the total size-- for each of the
object files in its argument list. By default, one line of output is
generated for each object file or each module in an archive.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>strings</title>
<para>For each file given, strings prints the printable character sequences 
that are at least 4 characters long (or the number specified with an
option to the program) and are followed by an unprintable character. By 
default, it only prints the strings from the initialized and loaded 
sections of object files. For other types of files, it prints the strings 
from the whole file.</para>

<para>strings is mainly useful for determining the contents of non-text files.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>strip</title>
<para>strip discards all or specific symbols from object files. The list of 
object files may include archives. At least one object file must be
given. strip modifies the files named in its argument, rather than writing 
modified copies under different names.</para></sect4>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>Library Files</title>
<para>libbfd.[a,so] and libopcodes.[a,so]</para></sect3>

<sect3><title>Descriptions</title>

<sect4><title>libbfd</title>
<para>libbfd is the Binary File Descriptor library.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>libopcodes</title>
<para>libopcodes is a native library for dealing with opcodes and is
used in the course of building utilities such as objdump. Opcodes are
actually "readable text" versions of instructions for the 
processor.</para></sect4>

</sect3>

</sect2>