The standard tool for listing symbols is nm
, you can use it simply like this:
nm -gD yourLib.so
If you want to see symbols of a C++ library, add the "-C" option which demangle the symbols (it's far more readable demangled).
nm -gDC yourLib.so
If your .so file is in elf format, you have two options:
Either objdump
(-C
is also useful for demangling C++):
$ objdump -TC libz.so
libz.so: file format elf64-x86-64
DYNAMIC SYMBOL TABLE:
0000000000002010 l d .init 0000000000000000 .init
0000000000000000 DF *UND* 0000000000000000 GLIBC_2.2.5 free
0000000000000000 DF *UND* 0000000000000000 GLIBC_2.2.5 __errno_location
0000000000000000 w D *UND* 0000000000000000 _ITM_deregisterTMCloneTable
Or use readelf
:
$ readelf -Ws libz.so
Symbol table '.dynsym' contains 112 entries:
Num: Value Size Type Bind Vis Ndx Name
0: 0000000000000000 0 NOTYPE LOCAL DEFAULT UND
1: 0000000000002010 0 SECTION LOCAL DEFAULT 10
2: 0000000000000000 0 FUNC GLOBAL DEFAULT UND free@GLIBC_2.2.5 (14)
3: 0000000000000000 0 FUNC GLOBAL DEFAULT UND __errno_location@GLIBC_2.2.5 (14)
4: 0000000000000000 0 NOTYPE WEAK DEFAULT UND _ITM_deregisterTMCloneTable
For Linux and I believe Mac OS X, if you're using gcc, or any compiler that uses glibc, you can use the backtrace() functions in execinfo.h
to print a stacktrace and exit gracefully when you get a segmentation fault. Documentation can be found in the libc manual.
Here's an example program that installs a SIGSEGV
handler and prints a stacktrace to stderr
when it segfaults. The baz()
function here causes the segfault that triggers the handler:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void handler(int sig) {
void *array[10];
size_t size;
// get void*'s for all entries on the stack
size = backtrace(array, 10);
// print out all the frames to stderr
fprintf(stderr, "Error: signal %d:\n", sig);
backtrace_symbols_fd(array, size, STDERR_FILENO);
exit(1);
}
void baz() {
int *foo = (int*)-1; // make a bad pointer
printf("%d\n", *foo); // causes segfault
}
void bar() { baz(); }
void foo() { bar(); }
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
signal(SIGSEGV, handler); // install our handler
foo(); // this will call foo, bar, and baz. baz segfaults.
}
Compiling with -g -rdynamic
gets you symbol info in your output, which glibc can use to make a nice stacktrace:
$ gcc -g -rdynamic ./test.c -o test
Executing this gets you this output:
$ ./test
Error: signal 11:
./test(handler+0x19)[0x400911]
/lib64/tls/libc.so.6[0x3a9b92e380]
./test(baz+0x14)[0x400962]
./test(bar+0xe)[0x400983]
./test(foo+0xe)[0x400993]
./test(main+0x28)[0x4009bd]
/lib64/tls/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xdb)[0x3a9b91c4bb]
./test[0x40086a]
This shows the load module, offset, and function that each frame in the stack came from. Here you can see the signal handler on top of the stack, and the libc functions before main
in addition to main
, foo
, bar
, and baz
.
Best Answer
You need to use objcopy to separate the debug information:
I use the bash script below to separate the debug information into files with a .debug extension in a .debug directory. This way I can tar the libraries and executables in one tar file and the .debug directories in another. If I want to add the debug info later on I simply extract the debug tar file and voila I have symbolic debug information.
This is the bash script: