Chapter 4. binutils

4.1. Installing binutils
4.2. Using the GNU Assembler
4.3. Using the GNU Linker
4.4. Using Other Binary Tools
4.5. Additional Resources

binutils is a collection of various binary tools such as the GNU linker, GNU assembler, and other utilities that allow you to inspect and manipulate object files and binaries. See Table 4.1, “Tools Included in binutils for Red Hat Developer Toolset” for a complete list of binary tools that are distributed with the Red Hat Developer Toolset version of binutils.

Red Hat Developer Toolset is distributed with binutils 2.23.52. This version is more recent than the version included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and provides numerous bug fixes and enhancements, including the new gold linker, several new command line options, improvements to the linker script language, and support for link-time optimization, compressed debug sections, and new instruction sets. For a detailed list of changes, see Section B.3, “Changes in binutils”.

Table 4.1. Tools Included in binutils for Red Hat Developer Toolset

Name	Description
`addr2line`	Translates addresses into file names and line numbers.
`ar`	Creates, modifies, and extracts files from archives.
`as`	The GNU assembler.
`c++filt`	Decodes mangled C++ symbols.
`dwp`	Combines DWARF object files into a single DWARF package file.
`elfedit`	Examines and edits ELF files.
`gprof`	Display profiling information.
`ld`	The GNU linker.
`ld.bfd`	An alternative to the GNU linker.
`ld.gold`	A new ELF linker.
`nm`	Lists symbols from object files.
`objcopy`	Copies and translates object files.
`objdump`	Displays information from object files.
`ranlib`	Generates an index to the contents of an archive to make access to this archive faster.
`readelf`	Displays information about ELF files.
`size`	Lists section sizes of object or archive files.
`strings`	Displays printable character sequences in files.
`strip`	Discards all symbols from object files.

4.1. Installing binutils

In Red Hat Developer Toolset, binutils are provided by the devtoolset-2-binutils package and are automatically installed with devtoolset-2-toolchain as described in Section 1.5, “Installing Red Hat Developer Toolset”.

Note

The Red Hat Developer Toolset version of binutils is available for both Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 on 32-bit and 64-bit Intel and AMD architectures.