15. readelf

readelf [‘-a’|‘--all’]
        [‘-h’|‘--file-header’]
        [‘-l’|‘--program-headers’|‘--segments’]
        [‘-S’|‘--section-headers’|‘--sections’]
        [‘-g’|‘--section-groups’]
        [‘-t’|‘--section-details’]
        [‘-e’|‘--headers’]
        [‘-s’|‘--syms’|‘--symbols’]
        [‘-n’|‘--notes’]
        [‘-r’|‘--relocs’]
        [‘-u’|‘--unwind’]
        [‘-d’|‘--dynamic’]
        [‘-V’|‘--version-info’]
        [‘-A’|‘--arch-specific’]
        [‘-D’|‘--use-dynamic’]
        [‘-x’ <number or name>|‘--hex-dump=’<number or name>]
        [‘-w[liaprmfFsoR]’|
         ‘--debug-dump’[=line,=info,=abbrev,=pubnames,=aranges,=macro,=frames,=frames-interp,=str,=loc,=Ranges]]
        [‘-I’|‘-histogram’]
        [‘-v’|‘--version’]
        [‘-W’|‘--wide’]
        [‘-H’|‘--help’]
        elffile…

readelf displays information about one or more ELF format object files. The options control what particular information to display.

elffile… are the object files to be examined. 32-bit and 64-bit ELF files are supported, as are archives containing ELF files.

This program performs a similar function to objdump but it goes into more detail and it exists independently of the BFD library, so if there is a bug in BFD then readelf will not be affected.

The long and short forms of options, shown here as alternatives, are equivalent. At least one option besides ‘-v’ or ‘-H’ must be given.

-a

--all

Equivalent to specifying ‘--file-header’, ‘--program-headers’, ‘--sections’, ‘--symbols’, ‘--relocs’, ‘--dynamic’, ‘--notes’ and ‘--version-info’.

-h

--file-header

Displays the information contained in the ELF header at the start of the file.

-l

--program-headers

--segments

Displays the information contained in the file's segment headers, if it has any.

-S

--sections

--section-headers

Displays the information contained in the file's section headers, if it has any.

-g

--section-groups

Displays the information contained in the file's section groups, if it has any.

-t

--section-details

Displays the detailed section information. Implies ‘-S’.

-s

--symbols

--syms

Displays the entries in symbol table section of the file, if it has one.

-e

--headers

Display all the headers in the file. Equivalent to ‘-h -l -S’.

-n

--notes

Displays the contents of the NOTE segments and/or sections, if any.

-r

--relocs

Displays the contents of the file's relocation section, if it has one.

-u

--unwind

Displays the contents of the file's unwind section, if it has one. Only the unwind sections for IA64 ELF files are currently supported.

-d

--dynamic

Displays the contents of the file's dynamic section, if it has one.

-V

--version-info

Displays the contents of the version sections in the file, it they exist.

-A

--arch-specific

Displays architecture-specific information in the file, if there is any.

-D

--use-dynamic

When displaying symbols, this option makes readelf use the symbol table in the file's dynamic section, rather than the one in the symbols section.

-x <number or name>

--hex-dump=<number or name>

Displays the contents of the indicated section as a hexadecimal dump. A number identifies a particular section by index in the section table; any other string identifies all sections with that name in the object file.

-w[liaprmfFsoR]

--debug-dump[=line,=info,=abbrev,=pubnames,=aranges,=macro,=frames,=frames-interp,=str,=loc,=Ranges]

Displays the contents of the debug sections in the file, if any are present. If one of the optional letters or words follows the switch then only data found in those specific sections will be dumped.

-I

--histogram

Display a histogram of bucket list lengths when displaying the contents of the symbol tables.

-v

--version

Display the version number of readelf.

-W

--wide

Don't break output lines to fit into 80 columns. By default readelf breaks section header and segment listing lines for 64-bit ELF files, so that they fit into 80 columns. This option causes readelf to print each section header resp. each segment one a single line, which is far more readable on terminals wider than 80 columns.

-H

--help

Display the command line options understood by readelf.