Chapter 4. binutils

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 2.27. This version is more recent than the version included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the previous release of Red Hat Developer Toolset and provides bug fixes and enhancements.

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 Another alternative to the GNU 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-6-binutils package and are automatically installed with devtoolset-6-toolchain as described in Section 1.5, “Installing Red Hat Developer Toolset”.