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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT | COLOPHON |
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STRIP(1) GNU Development Tools STRIP(1)
strip - discard symbols and other data from object files
strip [-F bfdname |--target=bfdname]
[-I bfdname |--input-target=bfdname]
[-O bfdname |--output-target=bfdname]
[-s|--strip-all]
[-S|-g|-d|--strip-debug]
[--strip-dwo]
[-K symbolname|--keep-symbol=symbolname]
[-M|--merge-notes][--no-merge-notes]
[-N symbolname |--strip-symbol=symbolname]
[-w|--wildcard]
[-x|--discard-all] [-X |--discard-locals]
[-R sectionname |--remove-section=sectionname]
[--keep-section=sectionpattern]
[--remove-relocations=sectionpattern]
[--strip-section-headers]
[-o file] [-p|--preserve-dates]
[-D|--enable-deterministic-archives]
[-U|--disable-deterministic-archives]
[--keep-section-symbols]
[--keep-file-symbols]
[--only-keep-debug]
[-v |--verbose] [-V|--version]
[--help] [--info]
objfile...
GNU strip discards all symbols from object files objfile. The
list of object files may include archives. At least one object
file must be given.
strip modifies the files named in its argument, rather than
writing modified copies under different names.
-F bfdname
--target=bfdname
Treat the original objfile as a file with the object code
format bfdname, and rewrite it in the same format.
--help
Show a summary of the options to strip and exit.
--info
Display a list showing all architectures and object formats
available.
-I bfdname
--input-target=bfdname
Treat the original objfile as a file with the object code
format bfdname.
-O bfdname
--output-target=bfdname
Replace objfile with a file in the output format bfdname.
-R sectionname
--remove-section=sectionname
Remove any section named sectionname from the output file, in
addition to whatever sections would otherwise be removed.
This option may be given more than once. Note that using this
option inappropriately may make the output file unusable. The
wildcard character * may be given at the end of sectionname.
If so, then any section starting with sectionname will be
removed.
If the first character of sectionpattern is the exclamation
point (!) then matching sections will not be removed even if
an earlier use of --remove-section on the same command line
would otherwise remove it. For example:
--remove-section=.text.* --remove-section=!.text.foo
will remove all sections matching the pattern '.text.*', but
will not remove the section '.text.foo'.
--keep-section=sectionpattern
When removing sections from the output file, keep sections
that match sectionpattern.
--remove-relocations=sectionpattern
Remove relocations from the output file for any section
matching sectionpattern. This option may be given more than
once. Note that using this option inappropriately may make
the output file unusable. Wildcard characters are accepted in
sectionpattern. For example:
--remove-relocations=.text.*
will remove the relocations for all sections matching the
patter '.text.*'.
If the first character of sectionpattern is the exclamation
point (!) then matching sections will not have their
relocation removed even if an earlier use of
--remove-relocations on the same command line would otherwise
cause the relocations to be removed. For example:
--remove-relocations=.text.* --remove-relocations=!.text.foo
will remove all relocations for sections matching the pattern
'.text.*', but will not remove relocations for the section
'.text.foo'.
--strip-section-headers
Strip section headers. This option is specific to ELF files.
Implies --strip-all and --merge-notes.
-s
--strip-all
Remove all symbols.
-g
-S
-d
--strip-debug
Remove debugging symbols only.
--strip-dwo
Remove the contents of all DWARF .dwo sections, leaving the
remaining debugging sections and all symbols intact. See the
description of this option in the objcopy section for more
information.
--strip-unneeded
Remove all symbols that are not needed for relocation
processing in addition to debugging symbols and sections
stripped by --strip-debug.
-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.
-M
--merge-notes
--no-merge-notes
For ELF files, attempt (or do not attempt) to reduce the size
of any SHT_NOTE type sections by removing duplicate notes.
The default is to attempt this reduction unless stripping
debug or DWO information.
-N symbolname
--strip-symbol=symbolname
Remove symbol symbolname from the source file. This option may
be given more than once, and may be combined with strip
options other than -K.
-o file
Put the stripped output in file, rather than replacing the
existing file. When this argument is used, only one objfile
argument may be specified.
-p
--preserve-dates
Preserve the access and modification dates of the file.
-D
--enable-deterministic-archives
Operate in deterministic mode. When copying archive members
and writing the archive index, use zero for UIDs, GIDs,
timestamps, and use consistent file modes for all files.
If binutils was configured with
--enable-deterministic-archives, then this mode is on by
default. It can be disabled with the -U option, below.
-U
--disable-deterministic-archives
Do not operate in deterministic mode. This is the inverse of
the -D option, above: when copying archive members and writing
the archive index, use their actual UID, GID, timestamp, and
file mode values.
This is the default unless binutils was configured with
--enable-deterministic-archives.
-w
--wildcard
Permit regular expressions in symbolnames used in other
command line options. The question mark (?), asterisk (*),
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 -K !foo -K fo*
would cause strip to only keep symbols that start with the
letters "fo", but to discard the symbol "foo".
-x
--discard-all
Remove non-global symbols.
-X
--discard-locals
Remove compiler-generated local symbols. (These usually start
with L or ..)
--keep-section-symbols
When stripping a file, perhaps with --strip-debug or
--strip-unneeded, retain any symbols specifying section names,
which would otherwise get stripped.
--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, emptying the contents of any sections that would
not be stripped by --strip-debug and leaving the debugging
sections intact. In ELF files, this preserves all the note
sections in the output as well.
Note - the section headers of the stripped sections are
preserved, including their sizes, but the contents of the
section are discarded. The section headers are preserved so
that other tools can match up the debuginfo file with the real
executable, even if that executable has been relocated to a
different address space.
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 it 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 "strip --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 for strip.
-v
--verbose
Verbose output: list all object files modified. In the case
of archives, strip -v lists all members of the archive.
@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 surrounding 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.
the Info entries for binutils.
Copyright (c) 1991-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, 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".
This page is part of the binutils (a collection of tools for
working with executable binaries) project. Information about the
project can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/⟩.
If you have a bug report for this manual page, see
⟨http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi?product=binutils⟩.
This page was obtained from the tarball binutils-with-
gold-2.44.tar.gz fetched from ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/⟩
on 2025-08-11. If you discover any rendering problems in this
HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more
up-to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not
part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
binutils-2.44 2025-08-11 STRIP(1)
Pages that refer to this page: elf(5), warning::debuginfo(7stap), warning::symbols(7stap)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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