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Output format documentation


Hi all,

I am trying to find out what the more mysterious columns mean in the output from the various binutils utilities.

E.g. What do the 'l', 'd', 'f' and zeros mean in the following?

# objdump -t sh-stub.exe

sh-stub.exe: file format elf32-little

SYMBOL TABLE:
a0000000 l    d  .text  00000000
a8000000 l    d  .data  00000000
a8000000 l    d  .bss   00000000
a8000a00 l    d  .stack 00000000
00000000 l    d  .comment       00000000
00000000 l    d  .debug_abbrev  00000000
00000000 l    d  .debug_info    00000000
00000000 l    d  .debug_line    00000000
a0002930 l    d  .rodata.str1.4 00000000
00000000 l    d  .debug_frame   00000000
00000000 l    d  .debug_pubnames        00000000
00000000 l    d  .debug_aranges 00000000
00000000 l    d  .debug_str     00000000
00000000 l    d  .note.GNU-stack        00000000
00000000 l    d  *ABS*  00000000
00000000 l    d  *ABS*  00000000
00000000 l    d  *ABS*  00000000
00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 entry.S
00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 linkage.h
00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 entry.S
00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 config.h
00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 entry.S
00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 <command line>
00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 <built-in>

00000000 l    df *ABS*  00000000 entry.S
ffffffd0 l       *ABS*  00000000 TRA
ffffffd4 l       *ABS*  00000000 EXPEVT
ffffffd8 l       *ABS*  00000000 INTEVT
fffffe9c l       *ABS*  00000000 TMU0_TCR
a0000044 l       .text  00000000 CCR_A
a0000048 l       .text  00000000 CCR_DISABLE
a000004c l       .text  00000000 CCR_D
etc...

This is just one example of the sort of indecipherable output one gets from these tools.

I have looked in the official documentation and searched the web a little, but can't find any clues there. nm is not completely without a description, but that appears to be the exception to the rule, and even then it is fairly minimal.

I can of course look in the source code, but that is not exactly convenient and guessing things from variable names etc. isn't exactly what I had in mind. For example, the 'd' above would appear to have something to do with debugging (according to bfd_print_symbol_vandf), but in what way remains vaguely mysterious.

Is there some documentation I have missed?

Whether or not there are any now, please can I request that somebody in the know inserts some useful descriptions into the official docs for the next version of binutils. Some column header in the tool output might not be a bad plan either. I know there is a problem in that the different data formats have different output, but at least the most common one ought to have something written.

Thanks very much

Andrew Stubbs


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