From Linux Man Pages
objcopy - copy and translate object files
SYNOPSIS
objcopy [-F bfdname|--target=bfdname]
[-I bfdname|--input-target=bfdname]
[-O bfdname|--output-target=bfdname]
[-B bfdarch|--binary-architecture=bfdarch]
[-S|--strip-all]
[-g|--strip-debug]
[-K symbolname|--keep-symbol=symbolname]
[-N symbolname|--strip-symbol=symbolname]
[--strip-unneeded-symbol=symbolname]
[-G symbolname|--keep-global-symbol=symbolname]
[--localize-hidden]
[-L symbolname|--localize-symbol=symbolname]
[--globalize-symbol=symbolname]
[-W symbolname|--weaken-symbol=symbolname]
[-w|--wildcard]
[-x|--discard-all]
[-X|--discard-locals]
[-b byte|--byte=byte]
[-i interleave|--interleave=interleave]
[-j sectionname|--only-section=sectionname]
[-R sectionname|--remove-section=sectionname]
[-p|--preserve-dates]
[--debugging]
[--gap-fill=val]
[--pad-to=address]
[--set-start=val]
[--adjust-start=incr]
[--change-addresses=incr]
[--change-section-address section{=,+,-}val]
[--change-section-lma section{=,+,-}val]
[--change-section-vma section{=,+,-}val]
[--change-warnings] [--no-change-warnings]
[--set-section-flags section=flags]
[--add-section sectionname=filename]
[--rename-section oldname=newname[,flags]]
[--change-leading-char] [--remove-leading-char]
[--srec-len=ival] [--srec-forceS3]
[--redefine-sym old=new]
[--redefine-syms=filename]
[--weaken]
[--keep-symbols=filename]
[--strip-symbols=filename]
[--strip-unneeded-symbols=filename]
[--keep-global-symbols=filename]
[--localize-symbols=filename]
[--globalize-symbols=filename]
[--weaken-symbols=filename]
[--alt-machine-code=index]
[--prefix-symbols=string]
[--prefix-sections=string]
[--prefix-alloc-sections=string]
[--add-gnu-debuglink=path-to-file]
[--keep-file-symbols]
[--only-keep-debug]
[--writable-text]
[--readonly-text]
[--pure]
[--impure]
[-v|--verbose]
[-V|--version]
[--help] [--info]
infile [outfile]
DESCRIPTION
The GNU objcopy utility copies the contents of an object file to another. objcopy uses the GNU BFD Library to
read and write the object files. It can write the destination object file in a format different from that of the
source object file. The exact behavior of objcopy is controlled by command-line options. Note that objcopy
should be able to copy a fully linked file between any two formats. However, copying a relocatable object file
between any two formats may not work as expected.
objcopy creates temporary files to do its translations and deletes them afterward. objcopy uses BFD to do all
its translation work; it has access to all the formats described in BFD and thus is able to recognize most for-
mats without being told explicitly.
objcopy can be used to generate S-records by using an output target of srec (e.g., use -O srec).
objcopy can be used to generate a raw binary file by using an output target of binary (e.g., use -O binary).
When objcopy generates a raw binary file, it will essentially produce a memory dump of the contents of the input
object file. All symbols and relocation information will be discarded. The memory dump will start at the load
address of the lowest section copied into the output file.
When generating an S-record or a raw binary file, it may be helpful to use -S to remove sections containing
debugging information. In some cases -R will be useful to remove sections which contain information that is not
needed by the binary file.
Note---objcopy is not able to change the endianness of its input files. If the input format has an endianness
(some formats do not), objcopy can only copy the inputs into file formats that have the same endianness or which
have no endianness (e.g., srec).
OPTIONS
infile
outfile
The input and output files, respectively. If you do not specify outfile, objcopy creates a temporary file
and destructively renames the result with the name of infile.
-I bfdname
--input-target=bfdname
Consider the source file's object format to be bfdname, rather than attempting to deduce it.
-O bfdname
--output-target=bfdname
Write the output file using the object format bfdname.
-F bfdname
--target=bfdname
Use bfdname as the object format for both the input and the output file; i.e., simply transfer data from
source to destination with no translation.
-B bfdarch
--binary-architecture=bfdarch
Useful when transforming a raw binary input file into an object file. In this case the output architecture
can be set to bfdarch. This option will be ignored if the input file has a known bfdarch. You can access this
binary data inside a program by referencing the special symbols that are created by the conversion process.
These symbols are called _binary_objfile_start, _binary_objfile_end and _binary_objfile_size. e.g. you can
transform a picture file into an object file and then access it in your code using these symbols.
-j sectionname
--only-section=sectionname
Copy only the named section from the input file to the output file. This option may be given more than once.
Note that using this option inappropriately may make the output file unusable.
-R sectionname
--remove-section=sectionname
Remove any section named sectionname from the output file. This option may be given more than once. Note
that using this option inappropriately may make the output file unusable.
-S
--strip-all
Do not copy relocation and symbol information from the source file.
-g
--strip-debug
Do not copy debugging symbols or sections from the source file.
--strip-unneeded
Strip all symbols that are not needed for relocation processing.
-K symbolname
--keep-symbol=symbolname
When stripping symbols, keep symbol symbolname even if it would normally be stripped. This option may be
given more than once.
-N symbolname
--strip-symbol=symbolname
Do not copy symbol symbolname from the source file. This option may be given more than once.
--strip-unneeded-symbol=symbolname
Do not copy symbol symbolname from the source file unless it is needed by a relocation. This option may be
given more than once.
-G symbolname
--keep-global-symbol=symbolname
Keep only symbol symbolname global. Make all other symbols local to the file, so that they are not visible
externally. This option may be given more than once.
--localize-hidden
In an ELF object, mark all symbols that have hidden or internal visibility as local. This option applies on
top of symbol-specific localization options such as -L.
-L symbolname
--localize-symbol=symbolname
Make symbol symbolname local to the file, so that it is not visible externally. This option may be given
more than once.
-W symbolname
--weaken-symbol=symbolname
Make symbol symbolname weak. This option may be given more than once.
--globalize-symbol=symbolname
Give symbol symbolname global scoping so that it is visible outside of the file in which it is defined. This
option may be given more than once.
-w
--wildcard
Permit regular expressions in symbolnames used in other command line options. The question mark (?), aster-
isk (*), backslash (\) and square brackets ([]) operators can be used anywhere in the symbol name. If the
first character of the symbol name is the exclamation point (!) then the sense of the switch is reversed for
that symbol. For example:
-w -W !foo -W fo*
would cause objcopy to weaken all symbols that start with "fo" except for the symbol "foo".
-x
--discard-all
Do not copy non-global symbols from the source file.
-X
--discard-locals
Do not copy compiler-generated local symbols. (These usually start with L or ..)
-b byte
--byte=byte
Keep only every byteth byte of the input file (header data is not affected). byte can be in the range from 0
to interleave-1, where interleave is given by the -i or --interleave option, or the default of 4. This
option is useful for creating files to program ROM. It is typically used with an "srec" output target.
-i interleave
--interleave=interleave
Only copy one out of every interleave bytes. Select which byte to copy with the -b or --byte option. The
default is 4. objcopy ignores this option if you do not specify either -b or --byte.
-p
--preserve-dates
Set the access and modification dates of the output file to be the same as those of the input file.
--debugging
Convert debugging information, if possible. This is not the default because only certain debugging formats
are supported, and the conversion process can be time consuming.
--gap-fill val
Fill gaps between sections with val. This operation applies to the load address (LMA) of the sections. It
is done by increasing the size of the section with the lower address, and filling in the extra space created
with val.
--pad-to address
Pad the output file up to the load address address. This is done by increasing the size of the last section.
The extra space is filled in with the value specified by --gap-fill (default zero).
--set-start val
Set the start address of the new file to val. Not all object file formats support setting the start address.
--change-start incr
--adjust-start incr
Change the start address by adding incr. Not all object file formats support setting the start address.
--change-addresses incr
--adjust-vma incr
Change the VMA and LMA addresses of all sections, as well as the start address, by adding incr. Some object
file formats do not permit section addresses to be changed arbitrarily. Note that this does not relocate the
sections; if the program expects sections to be loaded at a certain address, and this option is used to
change the sections such that they are loaded at a different address, the program may fail.
--change-section-address section{=,+,-}val
--adjust-section-vma section{=,+,-}val
Set or change both the VMA address and the LMA address of the named section. If = is used, the section
address is set to val. Otherwise, val is added to or subtracted from the section address. See the comments
under --change-addresses, above. If section does not exist in the input file, a warning will be issued,
unless --no-change-warnings is used.
--change-section-lma section{=,+,-}val
Set or change the LMA address of the named section. The LMA address is the address where the section will be
loaded into memory at program load time. Normally this is the same as the VMA address, which is the address
of the section at program run time, but on some systems, especially those where a program is held in ROM, the
two can be different. If = is used, the section address is set to val. Otherwise, val is added to or sub-
tracted from the section address. See the comments under --change-addresses, above. If section does not
exist in the input file, a warning will be issued, unless --no-change-warnings is used.
--change-section-vma section{=,+,-}val
Set or change the VMA address of the named section. The VMA address is the address where the section will be
located once the program has started executing. Normally this is the same as the LMA address, which is the
address where the section will be loaded into memory, but on some systems, especially those where a program
is held in ROM, the two can be different. If = is used, the section address is set to val. Otherwise, val
is added to or subtracted from the section address. See the comments under --change-addresses, above. If
section does not exist in the input file, a warning will be issued, unless --no-change-warnings is used.
--change-warnings
--adjust-warnings
If --change-section-address or --change-section-lma or --change-section-vma is used, and the named section
does not exist, issue a warning. This is the default.
--no-change-warnings
--no-adjust-warnings
Do not issue a warning if --change-section-address or --adjust-section-lma or --adjust-section-vma is used,
even if the named section does not exist.
--set-section-flags section=flags
Set the flags for the named section. The flags argument is a comma separated string of flag names. The rec-
ognized names are alloc, contents, load, noload, readonly, code, data, rom, share, and debug. You can set
the contents flag for a section which does not have contents, but it is not meaningful to clear the contents
flag of a section which does have contents--just remove the section instead. Not all flags are meaningful
for all object file formats.
--add-section sectionname=filename
Add a new section named sectionname while copying the file. The contents of the new section are taken from
the file filename. The size of the section will be the size of the file. This option only works on file
formats which can support sections with arbitrary names.
--rename-section oldname=newname[,flags]
Rename a section from oldname to newname, optionally changing the section's flags to flags in the process.
This has the advantage over usng a linker script to perform the rename in that the output stays as an object
file and does not become a linked executable.
This option is particularly helpful when the input format is binary, since this will always create a section
called .data. If for example, you wanted instead to create a section called .rodata containing binary data
you could use the following command line to achieve it:
objcopy -I binary -O <output_format> -B <architecture> \
--rename-section .data=.rodata,alloc,load,readonly,data,contents \
<input_binary_file> <output_object_file>
--change-leading-char
Some object file formats use special characters at the start of symbols. The most common such character is
underscore, which compilers often add before every symbol. This option tells objcopy to change the leading
character of every symbol when it converts between object file formats. If the object file formats use the
same leading character, this option has no effect. Otherwise, it will add a character, or remove a charac-
ter, or change a character, as appropriate.
--remove-leading-char
If the first character of a global symbol is a special symbol leading character used by the object file for-
mat, remove the character. The most common symbol leading character is underscore. This option will remove
a leading underscore from all global symbols. This can be useful if you want to link together objects of
different file formats with different conventions for symbol names. This is different from --change-lead-
ing-char because it always changes the symbol name when appropriate, regardless of the object file format of
the output file.
--srec-len=ival
Meaningful only for srec output. Set the maximum length of the Srecords being produced to ival. This length
covers both address, data and crc fields.
--srec-forceS3
Meaningful only for srec output. Avoid generation of S1/S2 records, creating S3-only record format.
--redefine-sym old=new
Change the name of a symbol old, to new. This can be useful when one is trying link two things together for
which you have no source, and there are name collisions.
--redefine-syms=filename
Apply --redefine-sym to each symbol pair "old new" listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat
file, with one symbol pair per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may
be given more than once.
--weaken
Change all global symbols in the file to be weak. This can be useful when building an object which will be
linked against other objects using the -R option to the linker. This option is only effective when using an
object file format which supports weak symbols.
--keep-symbols=filename
Apply --keep-symbol option to each symbol listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat file, with
one symbol name per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may be given
more than once.
--strip-symbols=filename
Apply --strip-symbol option to each symbol listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat file, with
one symbol name per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may be given
more than once.
--strip-unneeded-symbols=filename
Apply --strip-unneeded-symbol option to each symbol listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat
file, with one symbol name per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may
be given more than once.
--keep-global-symbols=filename
Apply --keep-global-symbol option to each symbol listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat
file, with one symbol name per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may
be given more than once.
--localize-symbols=filename
Apply --localize-symbol option to each symbol listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat file,
with one symbol name per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may be
given more than once.
--globalize-symbols=filename
Apply --globalize-symbol option to each symbol listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat file,
with one symbol name per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may be
given more than once.
--weaken-symbols=filename
Apply --weaken-symbol option to each symbol listed in the file filename. filename is simply a flat file,
with one symbol name per line. Line comments may be introduced by the hash character. This option may be
given more than once.
--alt-machine-code=index
If the output architecture has alternate machine codes, use the indexth code instead of the default one.
This is useful in case a machine is assigned an official code and the tool-chain adopts the new code, but
other applications still depend on the original code being used. For ELF based architectures if the index
alternative does not exist then the value is treated as an absolute number to be stored in the e_machine
field of the ELF header.
--writable-text
Mark the output text as writable. This option isn't meaningful for all object file formats.
--readonly-text
Make the output text write protected. This option isn't meaningful for all object file formats.
--pure
Mark the output file as demand paged. This option isn't meaningful for all object file formats.
--impure
Mark the output file as impure. This option isn't meaningful for all object file formats.
--prefix-symbols=string
Prefix all symbols in the output file with string.
--prefix-sections=string
Prefix all section names in the output file with string.
--prefix-alloc-sections=string
Prefix all the names of all allocated sections in the output file with string.
--add-gnu-debuglink=path-to-file
Creates a .gnu_debuglink section which contains a reference to path-to-file and adds it to the output file.
--keep-file-symbols
When stripping a file, perhaps with --strip-debug or --strip-unneeded, retain any symbols specifying source
file names, which would otherwise get stripped.
--only-keep-debug
Strip a file, removing contents of any sections that would not be stripped by --strip-debug and leaving the
debugging sections intact.
The intention is that this option will be used in conjunction with --add-gnu-debuglink to create a two part
executable. One a stripped binary which will occupy less space in RAM and in a distribution and the second a
debugging information file which is only needed if debugging abilities are required. The suggested procedure
to create these files is as follows:
1.<Link the executable as normal. Assuming that is is called>
"foo" then...
1.<Run "objcopy --only-keep-debug foo foo.dbg" to>
create a file containing the debugging info.
1.<Run "objcopy --strip-debug foo" to create a>
stripped executable.
1.<Run "objcopy --add-gnu-debuglink=foo.dbg foo">
to add a link to the debugging info into the stripped executable.
Note - the choice of ".dbg" as an extension for the debug info file is arbitrary. Also the
"--only-keep-debug" step is optional. You could instead do this:
1.<Link the executable as normal.>
1.<Copy "foo" to "foo.full">
1.<Run "objcopy --strip-debug foo">
1.<Run "objcopy --add-gnu-debuglink=foo.full foo">
i.e., the file pointed to by the --add-gnu-debuglink can be the full executable. It does not have to be a
file created by the --only-keep-debug switch.
Note - this switch is only intended for use on fully linked files. It does not make sense to use it on
object files where the debugging information may be incomplete. Besides the gnu_debuglink feature currently
only supports the presence of one filename containing debugging information, not multiple filenames on a one-
per-object-file basis.
-V
--version
Show the version number of objcopy.
-v
--verbose
Verbose output: list all object files modified. In the case of archives, objcopy -V lists all members of the
archive.
--help
Show a summary of the options to objcopy.
--info
Display a list showing all architectures and object formats available.
@file
Read command-line options from file. The options read are inserted in place of the original @file option.
If file does not exist, or cannot be read, then the option will be treated literally, and not removed.
Options in file are separated by whitespace. A whitespace character may be included in an option by sur-
rounding the entire option in either single or double quotes. Any character (including a backslash) may be
included by prefixing the character to be included with a backslash. The file may itself contain additional
@file options; any such options will be processed recursively.
RELATED
ld(1), objdump(1), and the Info entries for binutils.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free
Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documenta-
tion License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sec-
tions, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
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