Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 09:08:22 GMT From: James Raynard <fhackers@jraynard.demon.co.uk> To: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: gdb and dynamic symbol information Message-ID: <199607070908.JAA00837@jraynard.demon.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <199607061722.NAA10798@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> (message from Bill Paul on Sat, 6 Jul 1996 13:22:32 -0400 (EDT))
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> A while ago I discovered that gdb for the SunOS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.x > (SPARC and x86, probably PPC too), IRIX 5.x targets can read dynamic > symbol information from stripped binaries. (There may be other targets > where this is possible; these are just the ones I know off the top of my > head.) This is to say that if you have a dynamically linked binary that > has been stripped, you can still run gdb on it and accomplish a fair > amount of useful things. This is true even if the executable has _not_ > been compiled with -g. This is especially useful when trying to track > down problems with vendor software for which source is not available. > (Ever binary-edit an executable to toggle on a hidden debug flag? :) There's a program called 'unstrip' that does the same kind of thing and is probably easier to follow than poking around in the innermost depths of gdb. I had a look at porting it a while back but didn't really know enough about SunOS's executable format (or, to tell the truth, FreeBSD's). -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland james@jraynard.demon.co.uk http://www.freebsd.org/~jraynard/
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