The GNU Binary Utilities, or , are a set of
programming tool
A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs, that can b ...
s for creating and managing binary programs,
object files
An object file is a computer file containing object code, that is, machine code output of an assembler or compiler. The object code is usually relocatable, and not usually directly executable. There are various formats for object files, and the s ...
, libraries, profile data, and
assembly source code.
Tools
They were originally written by programmers at
Cygnus Solutions
Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software. Its tagline was: ''Making free software affordable''.
For years, employe ...
.
The GNU Binutils are typically used in conjunction with
compiler
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...
s such as the
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages, hardware architectures and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free softwar ...
(), build tools like , and the
GNU Debugger
The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Go, and partially others.
History
GDB was first written ...
().
Through the use of the
Binary File Descriptor library
The Binary File Descriptor library (BFD) is the GNU Project's main mechanism for the portable manipulation of object files in a variety of formats. , it supports approximately 50 file formats for some 25 instruction set architectures.
History ...
(), most tools support the various object file formats supported by .
Commands
The include the following commands:
elfutils
Ulrich Drepper wrote , to partially replace GNU Binutils, purely for
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...
and with support only for
ELF
An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...
and
DWARF
Dwarf or dwarves may refer to:
Common uses
*Dwarf (folklore), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore
* Dwarf, a person or animal with dwarfism
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a humanoid ...
. It distributes three libraries with it for programmatic access.
elfutils at Drepper's home
/ref>
See also
* GNU Core Utilities
The GNU Core Utilities or coreutils is a package of GNU software containing implementations for many of the basic tools, such as cat, ls, and rm, which are used on Unix-like operating systems.
In September 2002, the ''GNU coreutils'' were ...
* GNU Debugger
The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Go, and partially others.
History
GDB was first written ...
*ldd (Unix)
ldd (''List Dynamic Dependencies'') is a *nix utility that prints the shared libraries required by each program or shared library specified on the command line. It was developed by Roland McGrath and Ulrich Drepper. If some shared library is m ...
, list symbols imported by the object file; similar to
* List of Unix commands
This is a list of Unix commands as specified by IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, which is part of the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). These commands can be found on Unix operating systems and most Unix-like operating systems.
List
See also
* List of G ...
*llvm
LLVM is a set of compiler and toolchain technologies that can be used to develop a front end for any programming language and a back end for any instruction set architecture. LLVM is designed around a language-independent intermediate repre ...
provides similar set of tools
* strace
strace is a diagnostic, debugging and instructional userspace utility for Linux. It is used to monitor and tamper with interactions between processes and the Linux kernel, which include system calls, signal deliveries, and changes of proce ...
, a tool for system call debugging (enabled by kernel functionality) available on many distributions
References
External links
*
The ELF Tool Chain Project
: the BSD license similar project
mirror
{{DEFAULTSORT:Binutils
Programming tools
Free compilers and interpreters
GNU Project software