Provided by: abigail-doc_2.4-3build1_all 
NAME
libabigail - Library to analyze and compare ELF ABIs
OVERVIEW OF THE ABIGAIL FRAMEWORK
ABIGAIL stands for the Application Binary Interface Generic Analysis and Instrumentation
Library.
It’s a framework which aims at helping developers and software distributors to spot some
ABI-related issues like interface incompatibility in ELF shared libraries by performing a
static analysis of the ELF binaries at hand.
The type of interface incompatibilities that Abigail focuses on is related to changes on
the exported ELF functions and variables symbols, as well as layout and size changes of
data types of the functions and variables exported by shared libraries.
In other words, if the return type of a function exported by a shared library changes in
an incompatible way from one version of a given shared library to another, we want Abigail
to help people catch that.
In more concrete terms, the Abigail framwork provides a shared library named libabigail
which exposes an API to parse a shared library in ELF format (accompanied with its
associated debug information in DWARF format) build an internal representation of all the
functions and variables it exports, along with their types. Libabigail also builds an
internal representation of the ELF symbols of these functions and variables. That
information about these exported functions and variables is roughly what we consider as
being the ABI of the shared library, at least, in the scope of Libabigail.
Aside of this internal representation, libabigail provides facilities to perform deep
comparisons of two ABIs. That is, it can compare the types of two sets of functions or
variables and represents the result in a way that allows it to emit textual reports about
the differences.
This allows us to write tools like abidiff that can compare the ABI of two shared
libraries and represent the result in a meaningful enough way to help us spot ABI
incompatibilities. There are several other tools that are built using the Abigail
framwork.
TOOLS
Overview
The upstream code repository of Libabigail contains several tools written using the
library. They are maintained and released as part of the project. All tools come with a
bash-completion script.
Tools manuals
abidiff
abidiff compares the Application Binary Interfaces (ABI) of two shared libraries in ELF
format. It emits a meaningful report describing the differences between the two ABIs.
This tool can also compare the textual representations of the ABI of two ELF binaries (as
emitted by abidw) or an ELF binary against a textual representation of another ELF binary.
For a comprehensive ABI change report between two input shared libraries that includes
changes about function and variable sub-types, abidiff uses by default, debug information
in DWARF format, if present, otherwise it compares interfaces using debug information in
CTF or BTF formats, if present. Finally, if no debug info in these formats is found, it
only considers ELF symbols and report about their addition or removal.
This tool uses the libabigail library to analyze the binary as well as its associated
debug information. Here is its general mode of operation.
When instructed to do so, a binary and its associated debug information is read and
analyzed. To that effect, libabigail analyzes by default the descriptions of the types
reachable by the interfaces (functions and variables) that are visible outside of their
translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an Application Binary Interface Corpus is
constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable from interfaces associated
to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the binary. It’s that final ABI corpus
which libabigail considers as representing the ABI of the analyzed binary.
Libabigail then has capabilities to generate textual representations of ABI Corpora,
compare them, analyze their changes and report about them.
Invocation
abidiff [options] <first-shared-library> <second-shared-library>
Environment
abidiff loads two default suppression specifications files, merges their content and use
it to filter out ABI change reports that might be considered as false positives to users.
• Default system-wide suppression specification file
It’s located by the optional environment variable
LIBABIGAIL_DEFAULT_SYSTEM_SUPPRESSION_FILE. If that environment variable is not set,
then abidiff tries to load the suppression file
$libdir/libabigail/libabigail-default.abignore. If that file is not present, then no
default system-wide suppression specification file is loaded.
• Default user suppression specification file.
It’s located by the optional environment LIBABIGAIL_DEFAULT_USER_SUPPRESSION_FILE. If
that environment variable is not set, then abidiff tries to load the suppression file
$HOME/.abignore. If that file is not present, then no default user suppression
specification is loaded.
Options
• --help | -h
Display a short help about the command and exit.
• --debug-self-comparison
In this mode, error messages are emitted for types which fail type canonicalization,
in some circumstances, when comparing a binary against itself.
When comparing a binary against itself, canonical types of the second binary should
be equal (as much as possible) to canonical types of the first binary. When some
discrepancies are detected in this mode, an abort signal is emitted and execution is
halted. This option should be used while executing the tool in a debugger, for
troubleshooting purposes.
This is an optional debugging and sanity check option. To enable it the libabigail
package needs to be configured with the –enable-debug-self-comparison configure
option.
• --debug-tc
In this mode, the process of type canonicalization is put under heavy scrutiny.
Basically, during type canonicalization, each type comparison is performed twice:
once in a structural mode (comparing every sub-type member-wise), and once using
canonical comparison. The two comparisons should yield the same result. Otherwise,
an abort signal is emitted and the process can be debugged to understand why the two
kinds of comparison yield different results.
This is an optional debugging and sanity check option. To enable it the libabigail
package needs to be configured with the –enable-debug-type-canonicalization configure
option.
• --version | -v
Display the version of the program and exit.
• --debug-info-dir1 | --d1 <di-path1>
For cases where the debug information for first-shared-library is split out into a
separate file, tells abidiff where to find that separate debug information file.
Note that di-path must point to the root directory under which the debug information
is arranged in a tree-like manner. Under Red Hat based systems, that directory is
usually <root>/usr/lib/debug.
This option can be provided several times with different root directories. In that
case, abidiff will potentially look into all those root directories to find the split
debug info for first-shared-library.
Note also that this option is not mandatory for split debug information installed by
your system’s package manager because then abidiff knows where to find it.
• --debug-info-dir2 | --d2 <di-path2>
Like --debug-info-dir1, this options tells abidiff where to find the split debug
information for the second-shared-library file.
This option can be provided several times with different root directories. In that
case, abidiff will potentially look into all those root directories to find the split
debug info for second-shared-library.
• --headers-dir1 | --hd1 <headers-directory-path-1>
Specifies where to find the public headers of the first shared library (or binary in
general) that the tool has to consider. The tool will thus filter out ABI changes on
types that are not defined in public headers.
Note that several public header directories can be specified for the first shared
library. In that case the --headers-dir1 option should be present several times on
the command line, like in the following example:
$ abidiff --headers-dir1 /some/path \
--headers-dir1 /some/other/path \
binary-version-1 binary-version-2
• --header-file1 | --hf1 <header-file-path-1>
Specifies where to find one public header of the first shared library that the tool
has to consider. The tool will thus filter out ABI changes on types that are not
defined in public headers.
• --headers-dir2 | --hd2 <headers-directory-path-2>
Specifies where to find the public headers of the second shared library that the tool
has to consider. The tool will thus filter out ABI changes on types that are not
defined in public headers.
Note that several public header directories can be specified for the second shared
library. In that case the --headers-dir2 option should be present several times like
in the following example:
$ abidiff --headers-dir2 /some/path \
--headers-dir2 /some/other/path \
binary-version-1 binary-version-2
• --header-file2 | --hf2 <header-file-path-2>
Specifies where to find one public header of the second shared library that the tool
has to consider. The tool will thus filter out ABI changes on types that are not
defined in public headers.
• --add-binaries1 <bin1,bin2,bin3,..>
For each of the comma-separated binaries given in argument to this option, if the
binary is found in the directory specified by the --added-binaries-dir1 option, then
abidiff loads the ABI corpus of the binary and adds it to a set of corpora (called an
ABI Corpus Group) that includes the first argument of abidiff.
That ABI corpus group is then compared against the second corpus group given in
argument to abidiff.
• --add-binaries2 <bin1,bin2,bin3,..>
For each of the comma-separated binaries given in argument to this option, if the
binary is found in the directory specified by the --added-binaries-dir2 option, then
abidiff loads the ABI corpus of the binary and adds it to a set of corpora(called an
ABI Corpus Group) that includes the second argument of abidiff.
That ABI corpus group is then compared against the first corpus group given in
argument to abidiff.
• --follow-dependencies | --fdeps
For each dependency of the first argument of abidiff, if it’s found in the directory
specified by the --added-binaries-dir1 option, then construct an ABI corpus out of
the dependency, add it to a set of corpora (called an ABI Corpus Group) that includes
the first argument of abidiff.
Similarly, for each dependency of the second argument of abidiff, if it’s found in
the directory specified by the --added-binaries-dir2 option, then construct an ABI
corpus out of the dependency, add it to an ABI corpus group that includes the second
argument of abidiff.
These two ABI corpus groups are then compared against each other.
Said otherwise, this makes abidiff compare the set of its first input and its
dependencies against the set of its second input and its dependencies.
• list-dependencies | --ldeps
This option lists all the dependencies of the input arguments of abidiff that are
found in the directories specified by the options --added-binaries-dir1 and
--added-binaries-dir2
• --added-binaries-dir1 | --abd1 <added-binaries-directory-1>
This option is to be used in conjunction with the --add-binaries1,
--follow-dependencies and --list-dependencies options. Binaries referred to by these
options, if found in the directory added-binaries-directory-1, are loaded as ABI
corpus and are added to the first ABI corpus group that is to be used in the
comparison.
• --added-binaries-dir2 | --abd2 <added-binaries-directory-2>
This option is to be used in conjunction with the --add-binaries2,
--follow-dependencies and --list-dependencies options. Binaries referred to by these
options, if found in the directory added-binaries-directory-2, are loaded as ABI
corpus and are added to the second ABI corpus group to be used in the comparison.
• --no-linux-kernel-mode
Without this option, if abidiff detects that the binaries it is looking at are Linux
Kernel binaries (either vmlinux or modules) then it only considers functions and
variables which ELF symbols are listed in the __ksymtab and __ksymtab_gpl sections.
With this option, abidiff considers the binary as a non-special ELF binary. It thus
considers functions and variables which are defined and exported in the ELF sense.
• --kmi-whitelist | -kaw <path-to-whitelist>
When analyzing a Linux kernel binary, this option points to the white list of names
of ELF symbols of functions and variables which ABI must be considered. That white
list is called a “Kernel Module Interface white list”. This is because for the
Kernel, we don’t talk about ABI; we rather talk about the interface between the
Kernel and its module. Hence the term KMI rather than ABI.
Any other function or variable which ELF symbol are not present in that white list
will not be considered by this tool.
If this option is not provided – thus if no white list is provided – then the entire
KMI, that is, the set of all publicly defined and exported functions and global
variables by the Linux Kernel binaries, is considered.
• --drop-private-types
This option is to be used with the --headers-dir1, header-file1, header-file2 and
--headers-dir2 options. With this option, types that are NOT defined in the headers
are entirely dropped from the internal representation build by Libabigail to
represent the ABI. They thus don’t have to be filtered out from the final ABI change
report because they are not even present in Libabigail’s representation.
Without this option however, those private types are kept in the internal
representation and later filtered out from the report.
This options thus potentially makes Libabigail consume less memory. It’s meant to be
mainly used to optimize the memory consumption of the tool on binaries with a lot of
publicly defined and exported types.
• --exported-interfaces-only
By default, when looking at the debug information accompanying a binary, this tool
analyzes the descriptions of the types reachable by the interfaces (functions and
variables) that are visible outside of their translation unit. Once that analysis is
done, an ABI corpus is constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable
from interfaces associated to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the
binary. It’s those final ABI Corpora that are compared by this tool.
The problem with that approach however is that analyzing all the interfaces that are
visible from outside their translation unit can amount to a lot of data, especially
when those binaries are applications, as opposed to shared libraries. One example of
such applications is the Linux Kernel. Analyzing massive ABI corpora like these can
be extremely slow.
To mitigate that performance issue, this option allows libabigail to only analyze
types that are reachable from interfaces associated with defined and exported ELF
symbols.
Note that this option is turned on by default when analyzing the Linux Kernel.
Otherwise, it’s turned off by default.
• --allow-non-exported-interfaces
When looking at the debug information accompanying a binary, this tool analyzes the
descriptions of the types reachable by the interfaces (functions and variables) that
are visible outside of their translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an ABI
corpus is constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable from
interfaces associated to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the binary.
It’s those final ABI Corpora that are compared by this tool.
The problem with that approach however is that analyzing all the interfaces that are
visible from outside their translation unit can amount to a lot of data, especially
when those binaries are applications, as opposed to shared libraries. One example of
such applications is the Linux Kernel. Analyzing massive ABI Corpora like these can
be extremely slow.
In the presence of an “average sized” binary however one can afford having libabigail
analyze all interfaces that are visible outside of their translation unit, using this
option.
Note that this option is turned on by default, unless we are in the presence of the
Linux Kernel.
• --stat
Rather than displaying the detailed ABI differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, just display some summary statistics about these differences.
• --symtabs
Only display the symbol tables of the first-shared-library and second-shared-library.
• --deleted-fns
In the resulting report about the differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, only display the globally defined functions that got deleted
from first-shared-library.
• --changed-fns
In the resulting report about the differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, only display the changes in sub-types of the global functions
defined in first-shared-library.
• --added-fns
In the resulting report about the differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, only display the globally defined functions that were added to
second-shared-library.
• --deleted-vars
In the resulting report about the differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, only display the globally defined variables that were deleted
from first-shared-library.
• --changed-vars
In the resulting report about the differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, only display the changes in the sub-types of the global
variables defined in first-shared-library
• --added-vars
In the resulting report about the differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, only display the global variables that were added (defined) to
second-shared-library.
• --non-reachable-types|-t
Analyze and emit change reports for all the types of the binary, including those that
are not reachable from global functions and variables.
This option might incur some serious performance degradation as the number of types
analyzed can be huge. However, if paired with the --headers-dir{1,2} and/or
header-file{1,2} options, the additional non-reachable types analyzed are restricted
to those defined in public headers files, thus hopefully making the performance hit
acceptable.
Also, using this option alongside suppression specifications (by also using the
--suppressions option) might help keep the number of analyzed types (and the
potential performance degradation) in control.
Note that without this option, only types that are reachable from global functions
and variables are analyzed, so the tool detects and reports changes on these
reachable types only.
• --no-added-syms
In the resulting report about the differences between first-shared-library and
second-shared-library, do not display added functions or variables. Do not display
added functions or variables ELF symbols either. All other kinds of changes are
displayed unless they are explicitely forbidden by other options on the command line.
• --no-linkage-name
In the resulting report, do not display the linkage names of the added, removed, or
changed functions or variables.
• --no-show-locs
Do not show information about where in the second shared library the respective
type was changed.
• --show-bytes
Show sizes and offsets in bytes, not bits. By default, sizes and offsets are shown
in bits.
• --show-bits
Show sizes and offsets in bits, not bytes. This option is activated by default.
• --show-hex
Show sizes and offsets in hexadecimal base.
• --show-dec
Show sizes and offsets in decimal base. This option is activated by default.
• --ignore-soname
Ignore differences in the SONAME when doing a comparison
• --no-show-relative-offset-changes
Without this option, when the offset of a data member changes, the change report not
only mentions the older and newer offset, but it also mentions by how many bits the
data member changes. With this option, the latter is not shown.
• --no-unreferenced-symbols
In the resulting report, do not display change information about function and
variable symbols that are not referenced by any debug information. Note that for
these symbols not referenced by any debug information, the change information
displayed is either added or removed symbols.
• --no-default-suppression
Do not load the default suppression specification files.
• --suppressions | --suppr <path-to-suppressions>
Use a suppression specification file located at path-to-suppressions. Note that this
option can appear multiple times on the command line. In that case, all of the
provided suppression specification files are taken into account.
Please note that, by default, if this option is not provided, then the default
suppression specification files are loaded .
• --drop <regex>
When reading the first-shared-library and second-shared-library ELF input files, drop
the globally defined functions and variables which name match the regular expression
regex. As a result, no change involving these functions or variables will be emitted
in the diff report.
• --drop-fn <regex>
When reading the first-shared-library and second-shared-library ELF input files, drop
the globally defined functions which name match the regular expression regex. As a
result, no change involving these functions will be emitted in the diff report.
• --drop-var <regex>
When reading the first-shared-library and second-shared-library ELF input files, drop
the globally defined variables matching a the regular expression regex.
• --keep <regex>
When reading the first-shared-library and second-shared-library ELF input files, keep
the globally defined functions and variables which names match the regular expression
regex. All other functions and variables are dropped on the floor and will thus not
appear in the resulting diff report.
• --keep-fn <regex>
When reading the first-shared-library and second-shared-library ELF input files, keep
the globally defined functions which name match the regular expression regex. All
other functions are dropped on the floor and will thus not appear in the resulting
diff report.
• --keep-var <regex>
When reading the first-shared-library and second-shared-library ELF input files, keep
the globally defined which names match the regular expression regex. All other
variables are dropped on the floor and will thus not appear in the resulting diff
report.
• --harmless
In the diff report, display only the harmless changes. By default, the harmless
changes are filtered out of the diff report keep the clutter to a minimum and have a
greater chance to spot real ABI issues.
• --no-harmful
In the diff report, do not display the harmful changes. By default, only the harmful
changes are displayed in diff report.
• --redundant
In the diff report, do display redundant changes. A redundant change is a change
that has been displayed elsewhere in the report.
• --no-redundant
In the diff report, do NOT display redundant changes. A redundant change is a change
that has been displayed elsewhere in the report. This option is switched on by
default.
• --no-architecture
Do not take architecture in account when comparing ABIs.
• --no-corpus-path
Do not emit the path attribute for the ABI corpus.
• --fail-no-debug-info
If no debug info was found, then this option makes the program to fail. Otherwise,
without this option, the program will attempt to compare properties of the binaries
that are not related to debug info, like pure ELF properties.
• --leaf-changes-only|-l only show leaf changes, so don’t show impact analysis report.
This option implies --redundant.
The typical output of abidiff when comparing two binaries looks like this
$ abidiff libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed, 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void fn(C&)' at test-v1.cc:13:1 has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 1 of type 'C&' has sub-type changes:
in referenced type 'struct C' at test-v1.cc:7:1:
type size hasn't changed
1 data member change:
type of 'leaf* C::m0' changed:
in pointed to type 'struct leaf' at test-v1.cc:1:1:
type size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char leaf::m1', at offset 32 (in bits) at test-v1.cc:4:1
$
So in that example the report emits information about how the data member insertion
change of “struct leaf” is reachable from function “void fn(C&)”. In other words,
the report not only shows the data member change on “struct leaf”, but it also shows
the impact of that change on the function “void fn(C&)”.
In abidiff parlance, the change on “struct leaf” is called a leaf change. So the
--leaf-changes-only --impacted-interfaces options show, well, only the leaf change.
And it goes like this:
$ abidiff -l libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
'struct leaf' changed:
type size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char leaf::m1', at offset 32 (in bits) at test-v1.cc:4:1
one impacted interface:
function void fn(C&)
$
Note how the report ends by showing the list of interfaces impacted by the leaf
change.
Now if you don’t want to see that list of impacted interfaces, then you can just
avoid using the --impacted-interface option. You can learn about that option below,
in any case.
• --impacted-interfaces
When showing leaf changes, this option instructs abidiff to show the list of impacted
interfaces. This option is thus to be used in addition the --leaf-changes-only
option, otherwise, it’s ignored.
• --dump-diff-tree
After the diff report, emit a textual representation of the diff nodes tree used by
the comparison engine to represent the changed functions and variables. That
representation is emitted to the error output for debugging purposes. Note that
this diff tree is relevant only to functions and variables that have some sub-type
changes. Added or removed functions and variables do not have any diff nodes tree
associated to them.
• --no-assume-odr-for-cplusplus
When analysing a binary originating from C++ code using DWARF debug information,
libabigail assumes the One Definition Rule to speed-up the analysis. In that case,
when several types have the same name in the binary, they are assumed to all be
equal.
This option disables that assumption and instructs libabigail to actually actually
compare the types to determine if they are equal.
• --no-leverage-dwarf-factorization
When analysing a binary which DWARF debug information was processed with the DWZ
tool, the type information is supposed to be already factorized. That context is
used by libabigail to perform some speed optimizations.
This option disables those optimizations.
• --no-change-categorization | -x
This option disables the categorization of changes into harmless and harmful changes.
Note that this categorization is a pre-requisite for the filtering of changes so this
option disables that filtering. The goal of this option is to speed-up the execution
of the program for cases where the graph of changes is huge and where the user is
just interested in looking at, for instance, leaf node changes without caring about
their possible impact on interfaces. In that case, this option would be used along
with the --leaf-changes-only one.
• --ctf
When comparing binaries, extract ABI information from CTF debug information, if
present.
• --btf
When comparing binaries, extract ABI information from BTF debug information, if
present.
• --stats
Emit statistics about various internal things.
• --verbose
Emit verbose logs about the progress of miscellaneous internal things.
Return values
The exit code of the abidiff command is either 0 if the ABI of the binaries being compared
are equal, or non-zero if they differ or if the tool encountered an error.
In the later case, the exit code is a 8-bits-wide bit field in which each bit has a
specific meaning.
The first bit, of value 1, named ABIDIFF_ERROR means there was an error.
The second bit, of value 2, named ABIDIFF_USAGE_ERROR means there was an error in the way
the user invoked the tool. It might be set, for instance, if the user invoked the tool
with an unknown command line switch, with a wrong number or argument, etc. If this bit is
set, then the ABIDIFF_ERROR bit must be set as well.
The third bit, of value 4, named ABIDIFF_ABI_CHANGE means the ABI of the binaries being
compared are different.
The fourth bit, of value 8, named ABIDIFF_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE_CHANGE means the ABI of the
binaries compared are different in an incompatible way. If this bit is set, then the
ABIDIFF_ABI_CHANGE bit must be set as well. If the ABIDIFF_ABI_CHANGE is set and the
ABIDIFF_INCOMPATIBLE_CHANGE is NOT set, then it means that the ABIs being compared might
or might not be compatible. In that case, a human being needs to review the ABI changes
to decide if they are compatible or not.
Note that, at the moment, there are only a few kinds of ABI changes that would result in
setting the flag ABIDIFF_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE_CHANGE. Those ABI changes are either:
• the removal of the symbol of a function or variable that has been defined and
exported.
• the modification of the index of a member of a virtual function table (for C++
programs and libraries).
With time, when more ABI change patterns are found to always constitute incompatible ABI
changes, we will adapt the code to recognize those cases and set the
ABIDIFF_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE_CHANGE accordingly. So, if you find such patterns, please let us
know.
The remaining bits are not used for the moment.
Usage examples
1. Detecting a change in a sub-type of a function:
$ cat -n test-v0.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v0.so test-v0.cc
3
4 struct S0
5 {
6 int m0;
7 };
8
9 void
10 foo(S0* /*parameter_name*/)
11 {
12 // do something with parameter_name.
13 }
$
$ cat -n test-v1.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v1.so test-v1.cc
3
4 struct type_base
5 {
6 int inserted;
7 };
8
9 struct S0 : public type_base
10 {
11 int m0;
12 };
13
14 void
15 foo(S0* /*parameter_name*/)
16 {
17 // do something with parameter_name.
18 }
$
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v0.so test-v0.cc
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v1.so test-v1.cc
$
$ ../build/tools/abidiff libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed, 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void foo(S0*)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'S0*' has sub-type changes:
in pointed to type 'struct S0':
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 base class insertion:
struct type_base
1 data member change:
'int S0::m0' offset changed from 0 to 32
$
2. Detecting another change in a sub-type of a function:
$ cat -n test-v0.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v0.so test-v0.cc
3
4 struct S0
5 {
6 int m0;
7 };
8
9 void
10 foo(S0& /*parameter_name*/)
11 {
12 // do something with parameter_name.
13 }
$
$ cat -n test-v1.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v1.so test-v1.cc
3
4 struct S0
5 {
6 char inserted_member;
7 int m0;
8 };
9
10 void
11 foo(S0& /*parameter_name*/)
12 {
13 // do something with parameter_name.
14 }
$
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v0.so test-v0.cc
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v1.so test-v1.cc
$
$ ../build/tools/abidiff libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed, 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void foo(S0&)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'S0&' has sub-type changes:
in referenced type 'struct S0':
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char S0::inserted_member', at offset 0 (in bits)
1 data member change:
'int S0::m0' offset changed from 0 to 32
$
3. Detecting that functions got removed or added to a library:
$ cat -n test-v0.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v0.so test-v0.cc
3
4 struct S0
5 {
6 int m0;
7 };
8
9 void
10 foo(S0& /*parameter_name*/)
11 {
12 // do something with parameter_name.
13 }
$
$ cat -n test-v1.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v1.so test-v1.cc
3
4 struct S0
5 {
6 char inserted_member;
7 int m0;
8 };
9
10 void
11 bar(S0& /*parameter_name*/)
12 {
13 // do something with parameter_name.
14 }
$
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v0.so test-v0.cc
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-v1.so test-v1.cc
$
$ ../build/tools/abidiff libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 1 Removed, 0 Changed, 1 Added functions
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 Removed function:
'function void foo(S0&)' {_Z3fooR2S0}
1 Added function:
'function void bar(S0&)' {_Z3barR2S0}
$
4. Comparing two sets of binaries that are passed on the command line:
$ abidiff --add-binaries1=file2-v1 \
--add-binaries2=file2-v2,file2-v1 \
--added-binaries-dir1 dir1 \
--added-binaries-dir2 dir2 \
file1-v1 file1-v2
Note that the files file2-v1, and file2-v2 are to be found in dir1 and dir2 or in
the current directory.
5. Compare two libraries and their dependencies:
$ abidiff --follow-dependencies \
--added-binaries-dir1 /some/where \
--added-binaries-dir2 /some/where/else \
foo bar
This compares the set of binaries comprised by foo and its dependencies against the
set of binaries comprised by bar and its dependencies.
abipkgdiff
abipkgdiff compares the Application Binary Interfaces (ABI) of the ELF binaries contained
in two software packages. The software package formats currently supported are Deb, RPM,
tar archives (either compressed or not) and plain directories that contain binaries.
For a comprehensive ABI change report that includes changes about function and variable
sub-types, the two input packages must be accompanied with their debug information
packages that contain debug information either in DWARF, CTF or in BTF formats. Please
note however that some packages contain binaries that embed the debug information directly
in a section of said binaries. In those cases, obviously, no separate debug information
package is needed as the tool will find the debug information inside the binaries.
By default, abipkgdiff uses debug information in DWARF format, if present, otherwise it
compares binaries interfaces using debug information in CTF or in BTF formats, if present.
Finally, if no debug info in these formats is found, it only considers ELF symbols and
report about their addition or removal.
This tool uses the libabigail library to analyze the binary as well as its associated
debug information. Here is its general mode of operation.
When instructed to do so, a binary and its associated debug information is read and
analyzed. To that effect, libabigail analyzes by default the descriptions of the types
reachable by the interfaces (functions and variables) that are visible outside of their
translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an Application Binary Interface Corpus is
constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable from interfaces associated
to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the binary. It’s that final ABI corpus
which libabigail considers as representing the ABI of the analyzed binary.
Libabigail then has capabilities to generate textual representations of ABI Corpora,
compare them, analyze their changes and report about them.
Invocation
abipkgdiff [option] <package1> <package2>
package1 and package2 are the packages that contain the binaries to be compared.
Environment
abipkgdiff loads two default suppression specifications files, merges their content and
use it to filter out ABI change reports that might be considered as false positives to
users.
• Default system-wide suppression specification file
It’s located by the optional environment variable
LIBABIGAIL_DEFAULT_SYSTEM_SUPPRESSION_FILE. If that environment variable is not set,
then abipkgdiff tries to load the suppression file
$libdir/libabigail/libabigail-default.abignore. If that file is not present, then no
default system-wide suppression specification file is loaded.
• Default user suppression specification file.
It’s located by the optional environment LIBABIGAIL_DEFAULT_USER_SUPPRESSION_FILE. If
that environment variable is not set, then abipkgdiff tries to load the suppression file
$HOME/.abignore. If that file is not present, then no default user suppression
specification is loaded.
In addition to those default suppression specification files, abipkgdiff will also look
inside the packages being compared and if it sees a file that ends with the extension
.abignore, then it will consider it as a suppression specification and it will combine it
to the default suppression specification that might be already loaded.
The user might as well use the --suppressions option (that is documented further below) to
provide a suppression specification.
Options
• --help | -h
Display a short help about the command and exit.
• –version | -v
Display the version of the program and exit.
• --debug-info-pkg1 | --d1 <path>
For cases where the debug information for package1 is split out into a separate file,
tells abipkgdiff where to find that separate debug information package.
Note that the debug info for package1 can have been split into several different
debug info packages. In that case, several instances of this options can be
provided, along with those several different debug info packages.
• --debug-info-pkg2 | --d2 <path>
For cases where the debug information for package2 is split out into a separate file,
tells abipkgdiff where to find that separate debug information package.
Note that the debug info for package2 can have been split into several different
debug info packages. In that case, several instances of this options can be
provided, along with those several different debug info packages.
• --devel-pkg1 | --devel1 <path>
Specifies where to find the Development Package associated with the first package to
be compared. That Development Package at path should at least contain header files
in which public types exposed by the libraries (of the first package to be compared)
are defined. When this option is provided, the tool filters out reports about ABI
changes to types that are NOT defined in these header files.
• --devel-pkg2 | --devel2 <path>
Specifies where to find the Development Package associated with the second package to
be compared. That Development Package at path should at least contains header files
in which public types exposed by the libraries (of the second package to be compared)
are defined. When this option is provided, the tool filters out reports about ABI
changes to types that are NOT defined in these header files.
• --drop-private-types
This option is to be used with the --devel-pkg1 and --devel-pkg2 options. With this
option, types that are NOT defined in the headers are entirely dropped from the
internal representation build by Libabigail to represent the ABI. They thus don’t
have to be filtered out from the final ABI change report because they are not even
present in Libabigail’s representation.
Without this option however, those private types are kept in the internal
representation and later filtered out from the report.
This options thus potentially makes Libabigail consume less memory. It’s meant to be
mainly used to optimize the memory consumption of the tool on binaries with a lot of
publicly defined and exported types.
• --dso-only
Compare ELF files that are shared libraries, only. Do not compare executable files,
for instance.
• --private-dso
By default, abipkgdiff does not compare DSOs that are private to the RPM package. A
private DSO is a DSO which SONAME is NOT advertised in the “provides” property of the
RPM.
This option instructs abipkgdiff to also compare DSOs that are NOT advertised in the
“provides” property of the RPM.
Please note that the fact that (by default) abipkgdiff skips private DSO is a feature
that is available only for RPMs, at the moment. We would happily accept patches
adding that feature for other package formats.
• --leaf-changes-only|-l only show leaf changes, so don’t show impact analysis report.
This option implies --redundant
The typical output of abipkgdiff and abidiff when comparing two binaries, that we
shall call full impact report, looks like this
$ abidiff libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed, 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void fn(C&)' at test-v1.cc:13:1 has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 1 of type 'C&' has sub-type changes:
in referenced type 'struct C' at test-v1.cc:7:1:
type size hasn't changed
1 data member change:
type of 'leaf* C::m0' changed:
in pointed to type 'struct leaf' at test-v1.cc:1:1:
type size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char leaf::m1', at offset 32 (in bits) at test-v1.cc:4:1
$
So in that example the report emits information about how the data member insertion
change of “struct leaf” is reachable from function “void fn(C&)”. In other words,
the report not only shows the data member change on “struct leaf”, but it also shows
the impact of that change on the function “void fn(C&)”.
In abidiff (and abipkgdiff) parlance, the change on “struct leaf” is called a leaf
change. So the --leaf-changes-only --impacted-interfaces options show, well, only
the leaf change. And it goes like this:
$ abidiff -l libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
'struct leaf' changed:
type size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char leaf::m1', at offset 32 (in bits) at test-v1.cc:4:1
one impacted interface:
function void fn(C&)
$
Note how the report ends up by showing the list of interfaces impacted by the leaf
change. That’s the effect of the additional --impacted-interfaces option.
Now if you don’t want to see that list of impacted interfaces, then you can just
avoid using the --impacted-interface option. You can learn about that option below,
in any case.
Please note that when comparing two Linux Kernel packages, it’s this leaf changes
report that is emitted, by default. The normal so-called full impact report can be
emitted with the option --full-impact which is documented later below.
• --impacted-interfaces
When showing leaf changes, this option instructs abipkgdiff to show the list of
impacted interfaces. This option is thus to be used in addition to the
--leaf-changes-only option, or, when comparing two Linux Kernel packages. Otherwise,
it’s simply ignored.
• --full-impact|-f
When comparing two Linux Kernel packages, this function instructs abipkgdiff to emit
the so-called full impact report, which is the default report kind emitted by the
abidiff tool:
$ abidiff libtest-v0.so libtest-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed, 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void fn(C&)' at test-v1.cc:13:1 has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 1 of type 'C&' has sub-type changes:
in referenced type 'struct C' at test-v1.cc:7:1:
type size hasn't changed
1 data member change:
type of 'leaf* C::m0' changed:
in pointed to type 'struct leaf' at test-v1.cc:1:1:
type size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char leaf::m1', at offset 32 (in bits) at test-v1.cc:4:1
$
• --non-reachable-types|-t
Analyze and emit change reports for all the types of the binary, including those that
are not reachable from global functions and variables.
This option might incur some serious performance degradation as the number of types
analyzed can be huge. However, if paired with the --devel-pkg{1,2} options, the
additional non-reachable types analyzed are restricted to those defined in the public
headers files carried by the referenced development packages, thus hopefully making
the performance hit acceptable.
Also, using this option alongside suppression specifications (by also using the
--suppressions option) might help keep the number of analyzed types (and the
potential performance degradation) in control.
Note that without this option, only types that are reachable from global functions
and variables are analyzed, so the tool detects and reports changes on these
reachable types only.
• --exported-interfaces-only
By default, when looking at the debug information accompanying a binary, this tool
analyzes the descriptions of the types reachable by the interfaces (functions and
variables) that are visible outside of their translation unit. Once that analysis is
done, an ABI corpus is constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable
from interfaces associated to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the
binary. It’s those final ABI Corpora that are compared by this tool.
The problem with that approach however is that analyzing all the interfaces that are
visible from outside their translation unit can amount to a lot of data, especially
when those binaries are applications, as opposed to shared libraries. One example of
such applications is the Linux Kernel. Analyzing massive ABI corpora like these can
be extremely slow.
To mitigate that performance issue, this option allows libabigail to only analyze
types that are reachable from interfaces associated with defined and exported ELF
symbols.
Note that this option is turned on by default when analyzing the Linux Kernel.
Otherwise, it’s turned off by default.
• --allow-non-exported-interfaces
When looking at the debug information accompanying a binary, this tool analyzes the
descriptions of the types reachable by the interfaces (functions and variables) that
are visible outside of their translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an ABI
corpus is constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable from
interfaces associated to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the binary.
It’s those final ABI Corpora that are compared by this tool.
The problem with that approach however is that analyzing all the interfaces that are
visible from outside their translation unit can amount to a lot of data, especially
when those binaries are applications, as opposed to shared libraries. One example of
such applications is the Linux Kernel. Analyzing massive ABI Corpora like these can
be extremely slow.
In the presence of an “average sized” binary however one can afford having libabigail
analyze all interfaces that are visible outside of their translation unit, using this
option.
Note that this option is turned on by default, unless we are in the presence of the
Linux Kernel.
• --redundant
In the diff reports, do display redundant changes. A redundant change is a change
that has been displayed elsewhere in a given report.
• --harmless
In the diff report, display only the harmless changes. By default, the harmless
changes are filtered out of the diff report keep the clutter to a minimum and have a
greater chance to spot real ABI issues.
• --no-linkage-name
In the resulting report, do not display the linkage names of the added, removed, or
changed functions or variables.
• --no-added-syms
Do not show the list of functions, variables, or any symbol that was added.
• --no-added-binaries
Do not show the list of binaries that got added to the second package.
Please note that the presence of such added binaries is not considered like an ABI
change by this tool; as such, it doesn’t have any impact on the exit code of the
tool. It does only have an informational value. Removed binaries are, however,
considered as an ABI change.
• --no-abignore
Do not search the package for the presence of suppression files.
• --no-parallel
By default, abipkgdiff will use all the processors it has available to execute
concurrently. This option tells it not to extract packages or run comparisons in
parallel.
• --no-default-suppression
Do not load the default suppression specification files.
• --suppressions | --suppr <path-to-suppressions>
Use a suppression specification file located at path-to-suppressions. Note that this
option can appear multiple times on the command line. In that case, all of the
suppression specification files are taken into account.
Please note that, by default, if this option is not provided, then the default
suppression specification files are loaded .
• --linux-kernel-abi-whitelist | -w <path-to-whitelist>
When comparing two Linux kernel RPM packages, this option points to the white list of
names of ELF symbols of functions and variables that must be compared for ABI
changes. That white list is called a “Linux kernel ABI white list”.
Any other function or variable which ELF symbol are not present in that white list
will not be considered by the ABI comparison process.
If this option is not provided – thus if no white list is provided – then the ABI of
all publicly defined and exported functions and global variables by the Linux Kernel
binaries are compared.
Please note that if a white list package is given in parameter, this option handles
it just fine, like if the –wp option was used.
• --wp <path-to-whitelist-package>
When comparing two Linux kernel RPM packages, this option points an RPM package
containining several white lists of names of ELF symbols of functions and variables
that must be compared for ABI changes. Those white lists are called “Linux kernel
ABI white lists”.
From the content of that white list package, this program then chooses the
appropriate Linux kernel ABI white list to consider when comparing the ABI of Linux
kernel binaries contained in the Linux kernel packages provided on the command line.
That choosen Linux kernel ABI white list contains the list of names of ELF symbols of
functions and variables that must be compared for ABI changes.
Any other function or variable which ELF symbol are not present in that white list
will not be considered by the ABI comparison process.
Note that this option can be provided twice (not mor than twice), specifying one
white list package for each Linux Kernel package that is provided on the command
line.
If this option is not provided – thus if no white list is provided – then the ABI of
all publicly defined and exported functions and global variables by the Linux Kernel
binaries are compared.
• --no-unreferenced-symbols
In the resulting report, do not display change information about function and
variable symbols that are not referenced by any debug information. Note that for
these symbols not referenced by any debug information, the change information
displayed is either added or removed symbols.
• --no-show-locs
Do not show information about where in the second shared library the respective
type was changed.
• --show-bytes
Show sizes and offsets in bytes, not bits. By default, sizes and offsets are shown
in bits.
• --show-bits
Show sizes and offsets in bits, not bytes. This option is activated by default.
• --show-hex
Show sizes and offsets in hexadecimal base.
• --show-dec
Show sizes and offsets in decimal base. This option is activated by default.
• --no-show-relative-offset-changes
Without this option, when the offset of a data member changes, the change report not
only mentions the older and newer offset, but it also mentions by how many bits the
data member changes. With this option, the latter is not shown.
• --show-identical-binaries
Show the names of the all binaries compared, including the binaries whose ABI
compare equal. By default, when this option is not provided, only binaries with
ABI changes are mentionned in the output.
• --fail-no-dbg
Make the program fail and return a non-zero exit code if couldn’t read any of the
debug information that comes from the debug info packages that were given on the
command line. If no debug info package were provided on the command line then this
option is not active.
Note that the non-zero exit code returned by the program as a result of this option
is the constant ABIDIFF_ERROR. To know the numerical value of that constant, please
refer to the exit code documentation.
• --keep-tmp-files
Do not erase the temporary directory files that are created during the execution of
the tool.
• --verbose
Emit verbose progress messages.
• --self-check
This is used to test the underlying Libabigail library. When in used, the command
expects only on input package, along with its associated debug info packages. The
command then compares each binary inside the package against its own ABIXML
representation. The result of the comparison should yield the empty set if Libabigail
behaves correctly. Otherwise, it means there is an issue that ought to be fixed.
This option is used by people interested in Libabigail development for regression
testing purposes. Here is an example of the use of this option:
$ abipkgdiff --self-check --d1 mesa-libGLU-debuginfo-9.0.1-3.fc33.x86_64.rpm mesa-libGLU-9.0.1-3.fc33.x86_64.rpm
==== SELF CHECK SUCCEEDED for 'libGLU.so.1.3.1' ====
$
• --no-assume-odr-for-cplusplus
When analysing a binary originating from C++ code using DWARF debug information,
libabigail assumes the One Definition Rule to speed-up the analysis. In that case,
when several types have the same name in the binary, they are assumed to all be
equal.
This option disables that assumption and instructs libabigail to actually actually
compare the types to determine if they are equal.
• --no-leverage-dwarf-factorization
When analysing a binary which DWARF debug information was processed with the DWZ
tool, the type information is supposed to be already factorized. That context is
used by libabigail to perform some speed optimizations.
This option disables those optimizations.
• --ctf
This is used to compare packages with CTF debug information, if present.
• --btf
This is used to compare packages with BTF debug information, if present.
Return value
The exit code of the abipkgdiff command is either 0 if the ABI of the binaries compared
are equal, or non-zero if they differ or if the tool encountered an error.
In the later case, the value of the exit code is the same as for the abidiff tool.
kmidiff
kmidiff compares the binary Kernel Module Interfaces of two Linux Kernel trees. The
binary KMI is the interface that the Linux Kernel exposes to its modules. The trees we
are interested in here are the result of the build of the Linux Kernel source tree.
General approach
And example of how to build your kernel if you want to compare it to another one using
kmidiff is:
git clone -b v4.5 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git linux/v4.5
cd linux/v4.5
make allyesconfig all
Then install the modules into a directory, for instance, the build/modules sub-directory
of the your kernel source tree:
mkdir build/modules
make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_DIR=build/modules
Then construct a list of interfaces exported by the kernel, that you want to compare:
cat > kmi-whitelist << EOF
[kernel_4.5_kmi_whitelist]
init_task
schedule
dev_queue_xmit
__kmalloc
printk
EOF
Suppose you’ve done something similar for the v4.6 branch of the Linux kernel, you now
have these two directories: linux/v4.5 and linux/v4.6. Their modules are present under
the directories linux/v4.5/build/modules and linux/v4.6/build/modules.
To Comparing their KMI kmidiff needs to know where to find the vmlinux binaries and their
associated modules. Here would be what the command line looks like:
kmidiff \
--kmi-whitelist linux/v4.6/kmi-whitelist \
--vmlinux1 linux/v4.5/vmlinux \
--vmlinux2 linux/v4.6/vmlinux \
linux/v4.5/build/modules \
linux/v4.6/build/modules
This tool uses the libabigail library to analyze the binary as well as its associated
debug information. Here is its general mode of operation.
When instructed to do so, a binary and its associated debug information is read and
analyzed. To that effect, libabigail analyzes by default the descriptions of the types
reachable by the interfaces (functions and variables) that are visible outside of their
translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an Application Binary Interface Corpus is
constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable from interfaces associated
to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the binary. It’s that final ABI corpus
which libabigail considers as representing the ABI of the analyzed binary.
Libabigail then has capabilities to generate textual representations of ABI Corpora,
compare them, analyze their changes and report about them.
Invocation
More generally, kmidiff is invoked under the form:
kmidiff [options] <first-modules-dir> <second-modules-dir>
Environment
By default, kmidiff compares all the interfaces (exported functions and variables) between
the Kernel and its modules. In practice, though, some users might want to compare a
subset of the those interfaces.
By default, kmidiff uses debug information in the DWARF debug info format, if present,
otherwise it compares interfaces using CTF or BTF debug info formats, if present.
Finally, if no debug info in these formats is found, it only considers ELF symbols and
report about their addition or removal.
Users can then define a “white list” of the interfaces to compare. Such a white list is a
just a file in the “INI” format that looks like:
[kernel_version_x86_64_whitelist]
function1_name
function2_name
global_variable1_name
....
Note that the name of the section (the name that is between the two brackets) of that INI
file just has to end with the string “whitelist”. So you can define the name you want,
for instance [kernel_46_x86_64_whitelist].
Then each line of that whitelist file is the name of an exported function or variable.
Only those interfaces along with the types reachable from their signatures are going to be
compared by kmidiff recursively.
Note that by default kmidiff analyzes the types reachable from the interfaces associated
with ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the Linux Kernel as being the union of
the vmlinux binary and all its compiled modules. It then compares those interfaces (along
with their types).
Options
• --help | -h
Display a short help about the command and exit.
• --version | -v
Display the version of the program and exit.
• --verbose
Display some verbose messages while executing.
• --debug-info-dir1 | --d1 <di-path1>
For cases where the debug information for the binaries of the first Linux kernel is
split out into separate files, tells kmidiff where to find those separate debug
information files.
Note that di-path must point to the root directory under which the debug information
is arranged in a tree-like manner. Under Red Hat based systems, that directory is
usually <root>/usr/lib/debug.
• --debug-info-dir2 | --d2 <di-path2>
Like --debug-info-dir1, this options tells kmidiff where to find the split debug
information for the binaries of the second Linux kernel.
• --vmlinux1 | --l1 <path-to-first-vmlinux>
Sets the path to the first vmlinux binary to consider. This has to be the
uncompressed vmlinux binary compiled with debug info.
• --vmlinux2 | --l2 <path-to-first-vmlinux>
Sets the path to the second vmlinux binary to consider. This has to be the
uncompressed vmlinux binary compiled with debug info.
• --kmi-whitelist | -w <path-to-interface-whitelist>
Set the path to the white list of interfaces to compare while comparing the Kernel
Module Interface of the first kernel against the one of the second kernel.
If this option is not provided, all the exported interfaces of the two kernels are
compared. That takes a lot of times and is not necessarily meaningful because many
interface are probably meant to see their reachable types change.
So please, make sure you always use this option unless you really know what you are
doing.
• --suppressions | --suppr <path-to-suppressions>
Use a suppression specification file located at path-to-suppressions. Note that this
option can appear multiple times on the command line. In that case, all of the
provided suppression specification files are taken into account.
Please note that, by default, if this option is not provided, then the default
suppression specification files are loaded .
• --no-change-categorization | -x
This option disables the categorization of changes into harmless and harmful changes.
Note that this categorization is a pre-requisite for the filtering of changes so this
option disables that filtering. The goal of this option is to speed-up the execution
of the program for cases where the graph of changes is huge and where the user is
just interested in looking at, for instance, leaf node changes without caring about
their possible impact on interfaces.
• --ctf
Extract ABI information from CTF debug information, if present, in the Kernel and
Modules.
• --btf
Extract ABI information from BTF debug information, if present, in the Kernel and
Modules.
• --impacted-interfaces | -i
Tell what interfaces got impacted by each individual ABI change.
• --full-impact | -f
Emit a change report that shows the full impact of each change on exported
interfaces. This is the default kind of report emitted by tools like abidiff or
abipkgdiff.
• --exported-interfaces-only
When using this option, this tool analyzes the descriptions of the types reachable by
the interfaces (functions and variables) associated with ELF symbols that are defined
and exported by the Linux Kernel.
Otherwise, the tool also has the ability to analyze the descriptions of the types
reachable by the interfaces associated with ELF symbols that are visible outside
their translation unit. This later possibility is however much more resource
intensive and results in much slower operations.
That is why this option is enabled by default.
• --allow-non-exported-interfaces
When using this option, this tool analyzes the descriptions of the types reachable by
the interfaces (functions and variables) that are visible outside of their
translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an ABI Corpus is constructed by only
considering the subset of types reachable from interfaces associated to ELF symbols
that are defined and exported by the binary. It’s that final ABI corpus which is
compared against another one.
The problem with that approach however is that analyzing all the interfaces that are
visible from outside their translation unit can amount to a lot of data, leading to
very slow operations.
Note that this option is turned off by default.
• --show-bytes
Show sizes and offsets in bytes, not bits. This option is activated by default.
• --show-bits
Show sizes and offsets in bits, not bytes. By default, sizes and offsets are shown
in bytes.
• --show-hex
Show sizes and offsets in hexadecimal base. This option is activated by default.
• --show-dec
Show sizes and offsets in decimal base.
abidw
abidw reads a shared library in ELF format and emits an XML representation of its ABI to
standard output. The emitted representation format, named ABIXML, includes all the
globally defined functions and variables, along with a complete representation of their
types. It also includes a representation of the globally defined ELF symbols of the file.
When given the --linux-tree option, this program can also handle a Linux kernel tree.
That is, a directory tree that contains both the vmlinux binary and Linux Kernel modules.
It analyses those Linux Kernel binaries and emits an XML representation of the interface
between the kernel and its module, to standard output. In this case, we don’t call it an
ABI, but a KMI (Kernel Module Interface). The emitted KMI includes all the globally
defined functions and variables, along with a complete representation of their types.
To generate either ABI or KMI representation, by default abidw uses debug information in
the DWARF format, if present, otherwise it looks for debug information in CTF or BTF
formats, if present. Finally, if no debug info in these formats is found, it only
considers ELF symbols and report about their addition or removal.
This tool uses the libabigail library to analyze the binary as well as its associated
debug information. Here is its general mode of operation.
When instructed to do so, a binary and its associated debug information is read and
analyzed. To that effect, libabigail analyzes by default the descriptions of the types
reachable by the interfaces (functions and variables) that are visible outside of their
translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an Application Binary Interface Corpus is
constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable from interfaces associated
to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the binary. It’s that final ABI corpus
which libabigail considers as representing the ABI of the analyzed binary.
Libabigail then has capabilities to generate textual representations of ABI Corpora,
compare them, analyze their changes and report about them.
Invocation
abidw [options] [<path-to-elf-file>]
Options
• --help | -h
Display a short help about the command and exit.
• --version | -v
Display the version of the program and exit.
• --abixml-version
Display the version of the ABIXML format emitted by this program and exit.
• --add-binaries <bin1,bin2,…>
For each of the comma-separated binaries given in argument to this option, if the
binary is found in the directory specified by the –added-binaries-dir option, then
load the ABI corpus of the binary and add it to a set of ABI corpora (called a ABI
Corpus Group) made of the binary denoted by the Argument of abidw. That corpus group
is then serialized out.
• --follow-dependencies
For each dependency of the input binary of abidw, if it is found in the directory
specified by the --added-binaries-dir option, then construct an ABI corpus out of the
dependency and add it to a set of ABI corpora (called an ABI Corpus Group) along with
the ABI corpus of the input binary of the program. The ABI Corpus Group is then
serialized out.
• --list-dependencies
For each dependency of the input binary of``abidw``, if it’s found in the directory
specified by the --added-binaries-dir option, then the name of the dependency is
printed out.
• --added-binaries-dir | --abd <dir-path>
This option is to be used in conjunction with the --add-binaries, the
--follow-dependencies or the --list-dependencies option. Binaries listed as
arguments of the --add-binaries option or being dependencies of the input binary in
the case of the --follow-dependencies option and found in the directory <dir-path>
are going to be loaded as ABI corpus and added to the set of ABI corpora (called an
ABI corpus group) built and serialized.
• --debug-info-dir | -d <dir-path>
In cases where the debug info for path-to-elf-file is in a separate file that is
located in a non-standard place, this tells abidw where to look for that debug info
file.
Note that dir-path must point to the root directory under which the debug information
is arranged in a tree-like manner. Under Red Hat based systems, that directory is
usually <root>/usr/lib/debug.
This option can be provided several times with different root directories. In that
case, abidw will potentially look into all those root directories to find the split
debug info for the elf file.
Note that this option is not mandatory for split debug information installed by your
system’s package manager because then abidw knows where to find it.
• --out-file <file-path>
This option instructs abidw to emit the XML representation of path-to-elf-file into
the file file-path, rather than emitting it to its standard output.
• --noout
This option instructs abidw to not emit the XML representation of the ABI. So it
only reads the ELF and debug information, builds the internal representation of the
ABI and exits. This option is usually useful for debugging purposes.
• --no-corpus-path
Do not emit the path attribute for the ABI corpus.
• --suppressions | suppr <path-to-suppression-specifications-file>
Use a suppression specification file located at
path-to-suppression-specifications-file. Note that this option can appear multiple
times on the command line. In that case, all of the provided suppression
specification files are taken into account. ABI artifacts matched by the suppression
specifications are suppressed from the output of this tool.
• --kmi-whitelist | -kaw <path-to-whitelist>
When analyzing a Linux Kernel binary, this option points to the white list of names
of ELF symbols of functions and variables which ABI must be written out. That white
list is called a ” Kernel Module Interface white list”. This is because for the
Kernel, we don’t talk about the ABI; we rather talk about the interface between the
Kernel and its module. Hence the term KMI rather than ABI
Any other function or variable which ELF symbol are not present in that white list
will not be considered by the KMI writing process.
If this option is not provided – thus if no white list is provided – then the entire
KMI, that is, all publicly defined and exported functions and global variables by the
Linux Kernel binaries is emitted.
• --linux-tree | --lt
Make abidw to consider the input path as a path to a directory containing the vmlinux
binary as several kernel modules binaries. In that case, this program emits the
representation of the Kernel Module Interface (KMI) on the standard output.
Below is an example of usage of abidw on a Linux Kernel tree.
First, checkout a Linux Kernel source tree and build it. Then install the kernel
modules in a directory somewhere. Copy the vmlinux binary into that directory too.
And then serialize the KMI of that kernel to disk, using abidw:
$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
$ cd linux && git checkout v4.5
$ make allyesconfig all
$ mkdir build-output
$ make INSTALL_MOD_PATH=./build-output modules_install
$ cp vmlinux build-output/modules/4.5.0
$ abidw --linux-tree build-output/modules/4.5.0 > build-output/linux-4.5.0.kmi
• --headers-dir | --hd <headers-directory-path-1>
Specifies where to find the public headers of the binary that the tool has to
consider. The tool will thus filter out types that are not defined in public
headers.
Note that several public header directories can be specified for the binary to
consider. In that case the --header-dir option should be present several times on
the command line, like in the following example:
$ abidw --header-dir /some/path \
--header-dir /some/other/path \
binary > binary.abi
• --header-file | --hf <header-file-path>
Specifies where to find one of the public headers of the abi file that the tool has
to consider. The tool will thus filter out types that are not defined in public
headers.
• --drop-private-types
This option is to be used with the --headers-dir and/or header-file options. With
this option, types that are NOT defined in the headers are entirely dropped from the
internal representation build by Libabigail to represent the ABI and will not end up
in the abi XML file.
• --no-elf-needed
Do not include the list of DT_NEEDED dependency names in the corpus.
• --drop-undefined-syms
With this option functions or variables for which the (exported) ELF symbol is
undefined are dropped from the internal representation build by Libabigail to
represent the ABI and will not end up in the abi XML file.
• --exported-interfaces-only
By default, when looking at the debug information accompanying a binary, this tool
analyzes the descriptions of the types reachable by the interfaces (functions and
variables) that are visible outside of their translation unit. Once that analysis is
done, an ABI corpus is constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable
from interfaces associated to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the
binary. It’s that final ABI corpus which textual representation is saved as ABIXML.
The problem with that approach however is that analyzing all the interfaces that are
visible from outside their translation unit can amount to a lot of data, especially
when those binaries are applications, as opposed to shared libraries. One example of
such applications is the Linux Kernel. Analyzing massive ABI corpora like these can
be extremely slow.
To mitigate that performance issue, this option allows libabigail to only analyze
types that are reachable from interfaces associated with defined and exported ELF
symbols.
Note that this option is turned on by default when analyzing the Linux Kernel.
Otherwise, it’s turned off by default.
• --allow-non-exported-interfaces
When looking at the debug information accompanying a binary, this tool analyzes the
descriptions of the types reachable by the interfaces (functions and variables) that
are visible outside of their translation unit. Once that analysis is done, an ABI
corpus is constructed by only considering the subset of types reachable from
interfaces associated to ELF symbols that are defined and exported by the binary.
It’s that final ABI corpus which textual representation is saved as ABIXML.
The problem with that approach however is that analyzing all the interfaces that are
visible from outside their translation unit can amount to a lot of data, especially
when those binaries are applications, as opposed to shared libraries. One example of
such applications is the Linux Kernel. Analyzing massive ABI corpora like these can
be extremely slow.
In the presence of an “average sized” binary however one can afford having libabigail
analyze all interfaces that are visible outside of their translation unit, using this
option.
Note that this option is turned on by default, unless we are in the presence of the
Linux Kernel.
• --no-linux-kernel-mode
Without this option, if abipkgiff detects that the binaries it is looking at are
Linux Kernel binaries (either vmlinux or modules) then it only considers functions
and variables which ELF symbols are listed in the __ksymtab and __ksymtab_gpl
sections.
With this option, abipkgdiff considers the binary as a non-special ELF binary. It
thus considers functions and variables which are defined and exported in the ELF
sense.
• --check-alternate-debug-info <elf-path>
If the debug info for the file elf-path contains a reference to an alternate debug
info file, abidw checks that it can find that alternate debug info file. In that
case, it emits a meaningful success message mentioning the full path to the alternate
debug info file found. Otherwise, it emits an error code.
• --no-show-locs
In the emitted ABI representation, do not show file, line or column where ABI
artifacts are defined.
• --no-parameter-names
In the emitted ABI representation, do not show names of function parameters, just the
types.
• --no-write-default-sizes
In the XML ABI representation, do not write the size-in-bits for pointer type
definitions, reference type definitions, function declarations and function types
when they are equal to the default address size of the translation unit. Note that
libabigail before 1.8 will not set the default size and will interpret types without
a size-in-bits attribute as zero sized.
• --type-id-style <sequence``|``hash>
This option controls how types are idenfied in the generated XML files. The default
sequence style just numbers (with type-id- as prefix) the types in the order they are
encountered. The hash style uses a (stable, portable) hash of libabigail’s internal
type names and is intended to make the XML files easier to diff.
• --check-alternate-debug-info-base-name <elf-path>
Like --check-alternate-debug-info, but in the success message, only mention the base
name of the debug info file; not its full path.
• --load-all-types
By default, libabigail (and thus abidw) only loads types that are reachable from
functions and variables declarations that are publicly defined and exported by the
binary. So only those types are present in the output of abidw. This option however
makes abidw load all the types defined in the binaries, even those that are not
reachable from public declarations.
• --abidiff
Load the ABI of the ELF binary given in argument, save it in libabigail’s XML
format in a temporary file; read the ABI from the temporary XML file and compare
the ABI that has been read back against the ABI of the ELF binary given in
argument. The ABIs should compare equal. If they don’t, the program emits a
diagnostic and exits with a non-zero code.
This is a debugging and sanity check option.
• --debug-abidiff
Same as --abidiff but in debug mode. In this mode, error messages are emitted for
types which fail type canonicalization.
This is an optional debugging and sanity check option. To enable it the libabigail
package needs to be configured with the –enable-debug-self-comparison option.
• --debug-type-canonicalization | --debug-tc
Debug the type canonicalization process. This is done by using structural and
canonical equality when canonicalizing every single type. Structural and canonical
equality should yield the same result. If they don’t yield the same result for a
given type, then it means that the canonicalization of that type went wrong. In
that case, an error message is emitted and the execution of the program is aborted.
This option is available only if the package was configured with the
–enable-debug-type-canonicalization option.
• --no-assume-odr-for-cplusplus
When analysing a binary originating from C++ code using DWARF debug information,
libabigail assumes the One Definition Rule to speed-up the analysis. In that case,
when several types have the same name in the binary, they are assumed to all be
equal.
This option disables that assumption and instructs libabigail to actually actually
compare the types to determine if they are equal.
• --no-leverage-dwarf-factorization
When analysing a binary which DWARF debug information was processed with the DWZ
tool, the type information is supposed to be already factorized. That context is
used by libabigail to perform some speed optimizations.
This option disables those optimizations.
• --ctf
Extract ABI information from CTF debug information, if present in the given object.
• --annotate
Annotate the ABIXML output with comments above most elements. The comments are
made of the pretty-printed form types, declaration or even ELF symbols. The
purpose is to make the ABIXML output more human-readable for debugging or
documenting purposes.
• --stats
Emit statistics about various internal things.
• --verbose
Emit verbose logs about the progress of miscellaneous internal things.
Usage examples
1. Emitting an ABIXML representation of a binary:
$ abidw binary > binary.abi
2. Emitting an ABIXML representation of a set of binaries specified on the command
line:
$ abidw --added-binaries=bin1,bin2,bin3 \
--added-binaries-dir /some/where \
binary > binaries.abi
Note that the binaries bin1, bin2 and bin3 are to be found in the directory
/some/where. A representation of the ABI of the set of binaries binary, bin1, bin2
and bin3 called an ABI corpus group is serialized in the file binaries.abi.
3. Emitting an ABIXML representation of a binary and its dependencies:
$ abidw --follow-dependencies \
--added-binaries-dir /some/where \
binary > binary.abi
Note that only the dependencies that are found in the directory /some/where are
analysed. Their ABIs, along with the ABI the binary named binary are represented as
an ABI corpus group and serialized in the file binary.abi, in the ABIXML format.
Notes
Alternate debug info files
As of the version 4 of the DWARF specification, Alternate debug information is a GNU
extension to the DWARF specification. It has however been proposed for inclusion into the
upcoming version 5 of the DWARF standard. You can read more about the GNU extensions to
the DWARF standard here.
abicompat
abicompat checks that an application that links against a given shared library is still
ABI compatible with a subsequent version of that library. If the new version of the
library introduces an ABI incompatibility, then abicompat hints the user at what exactly
that incompatibility is.
Invocation
abicompat [options] [<application> <shared-library-first-version> <shared-library-second-version>]
Options
• --help
Display a short help about the command and exit.
• –version | -v
Display the version of the program and exit.
• --list-undefined-symbols | -u
Display the list of undefined symbols of the application and exit.
• --show-base-names | -b
In the resulting report emitted by the tool, this option makes the application and
libraries be referred to by their base names only; not by a full absolute name. This
can be useful for use in scripts that wants to compare names of the application and
libraries independently of what their directory names are.
• --app-debug-info-dir | --appd <path-to-app-debug-info-directory>
Set the path to the directory under which the debug information of the application is
supposed to be laid out. This is useful for application binaries for which the debug
info is in a separate set of files.
• --lib-debug-info-dir1 | --libd1 <path-to-lib1-debug-info>
Set the path to the directory under which the debug information of the first version
of the shared library is supposed to be laid out. This is useful for shared library
binaries for which the debug info is in a separate set of files.
• --lib-debug-info-dir2 | --libd2 <path-to-lib1-debug-info>
Set the path to the directory under which the debug information of the second version
of the shared library is supposed to be laid out. This is useful for shared library
binaries for which the debug info is in a separate set of files.
• --suppressions | --suppr <path-to-suppressions>
Use a suppression specification file located at path-to-suppressions. Note that this
option can appear multiple times on the command line; all the suppression
specification files are then taken into account.
• --no-show-locs
Do not show information about where in the second shared library the respective
type was changed.
• --ctf
When comparing binaries, extract ABI information from CTF debug information, if
present.
• --fail-no-debug-info
If no debug info was found, then this option makes the program to fail. Otherwise,
without this option, the program will attempt to compare properties of the binaries
that are not related to debug info, like pure ELF properties.
• --ignore-soname
Ignore differences in the SONAME when doing a comparison
• --weak-mode
This triggers the weak mode of abicompat. In this mode, only one version of the
library is required. That is, abicompat is invoked like this:
abicompat --weak-mode <the-application> <the-library>
Note that the --weak-mode option can even be omitted if only one version of the
library is given, along with the application; in that case, abicompat automatically
switches to operate in weak mode:
abicompat <the-application> <the-library>
In this weak mode, the types of functions and variables exported by the library and
consumed by the application (as in, the symbols of the these functions and variables
are undefined in the application and are defined and exported by the library) are
compared to the version of these types as expected by the application. And if these
two versions of types are different, abicompat tells the user what the differences
are.
In other words, in this mode, abicompat checks that the types of the functions and
variables exported by the library mean the same thing as what the application
expects, as far as the ABI is concerned.
Note that in this mode, abicompat doesn’t detect exported functions or variables
(symbols) that are expected by the application but that are removed from the library.
That is why it is called weak mode.
Return values
The exit code of the abicompat command is either 0 if the ABI of the binaries being
compared are equal, or non-zero if they differ or if the tool encountered an error.
In the later case, the exit code is a 8-bits-wide bit field in which each bit has a
specific meaning.
The first bit, of value 1, named ABIDIFF_ERROR means there was an error.
The second bit, of value 2, named ABIDIFF_USAGE_ERROR means there was an error in the way
the user invoked the tool. It might be set, for instance, if the user invoked the tool
with an unknown command line switch, with a wrong number or argument, etc. If this bit is
set, then the ABIDIFF_ERROR bit must be set as well.
The third bit, of value 4, named ABIDIFF_ABI_CHANGE means the ABI of the binaries being
compared are different.
The fourth bit, of value 8, named ABIDIFF_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE_CHANGE means the ABI of the
binaries compared are different in an incompatible way. If this bit is set, then the
ABIDIFF_ABI_CHANGE bit must be set as well. If the ABIDIFF_ABI_CHANGE is set and the
ABIDIFF_INCOMPATIBLE_CHANGE is NOT set, then it means that the ABIs being compared might
or might not be compatible. In that case, a human being needs to review the ABI changes
to decide if they are compatible or not.
The remaining bits are not used for the moment.
Usage examples
• Detecting a possible ABI incompatibility in a new shared library version:
$ cat -n test0.h
1 struct foo
2 {
3 int m0;
4
5 foo()
6 : m0()
7 {}
8 };
9
10 foo*
11 first_func();
12
13 void
14 second_func(foo&);
15
16 void
17 third_func();
$
$ cat -n test-app.cc
1 // Compile with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -o test-app -L. -ltest-0 test-app.cc
3
4 #include "test0.h"
5
6 int
7 main()
8 {
9 foo* f = first_func();
10 second_func(*f);
11 return 0;
12 }
$
$ cat -n test0.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-0.so test0.cc
3
4 #include "test0.h"
5
6 foo*
7 first_func()
8 {
9 foo* f = new foo();
10 return f;
11 }
12
13 void
14 second_func(foo&)
15 {
16 }
17
18 void
19 third_func()
20 {
21 }
$
$ cat -n test1.h
1 struct foo
2 {
3 int m0;
4 char m1; /* <-- a new member got added here! */
5
6 foo()
7 : m0(),
8 m1()
9 {}
10 };
11
12 foo*
13 first_func();
14
15 void
16 second_func(foo&);
17
18 void
19 third_func();
$
$ cat -n test1.cc
1 // Compile this with:
2 // g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-1.so test1.cc
3
4 #include "test1.h"
5
6 foo*
7 first_func()
8 {
9 foo* f = new foo();
10 return f;
11 }
12
13 void
14 second_func(foo&)
15 {
16 }
17
18 /* Let's comment out the definition of third_func()
19 void
20 third_func()
21 {
22 }
23 */
$
• Compile the first and second versions of the libraries: libtest-0.so and
libtest-1.so:
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-0.so test0.cc
$ g++ -g -Wall -shared -o libtest-1.so test1.cc
• Compile the application and link it against the first version of the library,
creating the test-app binary:
$ g++ -g -Wall -o test-app -L. -ltest-0.so test-app.cc
• Now, use abicompat to see if libtest-1.so is ABI compatible with app, with respect
to the ABI of libtest-0.so:
$ abicompat test-app libtest-0.so libtest-1.so
ELF file 'test-app' might not be ABI compatible with 'libtest-1.so' due to differences with 'libtest-0.so' below:
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 2 Changed, 0 Added functions
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
2 functions with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function foo* first_func()' has some indirect sub-type changes:
return type changed:
in pointed to type 'struct foo':
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char foo::m1', at offset 32 (in bits)
[C]'function void second_func(foo&)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'foo&' has sub-type changes:
referenced type 'struct foo' changed, as reported earlier
$
• Now use the weak mode of abicompat, that is, providing just the application and the
new version of the library:
$ abicompat --weak-mode test-app libtest-1.so
functions defined in library
'libtest-1.so'
have sub-types that are different from what application
'test-app'
expects:
function foo* first_func():
return type changed:
in pointed to type 'struct foo':
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char foo::m1', at offset 32 (in bits)
$
abilint
abilint parses the native XML representation of an ABI as emitted by abidw. Once it has
parsed the XML representation of the ABI, abilint builds and in-memory model from it. It
then tries to save it back to an XML form, to standard output. If that read-write
operation succeeds chances are the input XML ABI representation is meaningful.
Note that the main intent of this tool to help debugging issues in the underlying
Libabigail library.
Note also that abilint can also read an ELF input file, build the in-memory model for its
ABI, and serialize that model back into XML to standard output. In that case, the ELF
input file must be accompanied with its debug information in the DWARF format.
Invocation
abilint [options] [<abi-file1>]
Options
• --help
Display a short help message and exits.
• –version | -v
Display the version of the program and exit.
• --debug-info-dir <path>
When reading an ELF input file which debug information is split out into a separate
file, this options tells abilint where to find that separate debug information file.
Note that path must point to the root directory under which the debug information is
arranged in a tree-like manner. Under Red Hat based systems, that directory is
usually <root>/usr/lib/debug.
Note also that this option is not mandatory for split debug information installed by
your system’s package manager because then abidiff knows where to find it.
• --diff
For XML inputs, perform a text diff between the input and the memory model saved back
to disk. This can help to spot issues in the handling of the XML format by the
underlying Libabigail library.
• --noout
Do not display anything on standard output. The return code of the command is the
only way to know if the command succeeded.
• --suppressions | suppr <path-to-suppression-specifications-file>
Use a suppression specification file located at
path-to-suppression-specifications-file. Note that this option can appear multiple
times on the command line. In that case, all of the provided suppression
specification files are taken into account. ABI artifacts matched by the suppression
specifications are suppressed from the output of this tool.
• --headers-dir | --hd <headers-directory-path-1>
Specifies where to find the public headers of the first shared library that the tool
has to consider. The tool will thus filter out types that are not defined in public
headers.
• --header-file | --hf <header-file-path>
Specifies where to find one of the public headers of the abi file that the tool has
to consider. The tool will thus filter out types that are not defined in public
headers.
• --stdin | --
Read the input content from standard input.
• --tu
Expect the input XML to represent a single translation unit.
• --ctf
Extract ABI information from CTF debug information, if present in the given object.
fedabipkgdiff
fedabipkgdiff compares the ABI of shared libraries in Fedora packages. It’s a convenient
way to do so without having to manually download packages from the Fedora Build System.
fedabipkgdiff knows how to talk with the Fedora Build System to find the right packages
versions, their associated debug information and development packages, download them,
compare their ABI locally, and report about the possible ABI changes.
Note that by default, this tool reports ABI changes about types that are defined in public
header files found in the development packages associated with the packages being
compared. It also reports ABI changes about functions and global variables whose symbols
are defined and exported in the ELF binaries found in the packages being compared.
Invocation
fedabipkgdiff [option] <NVR> ...
Environment
fedabipkgdiff loads two default suppression specifications files, merges their content and
use it to filter out ABI change reports that might be considered as false positives to
users.
• Default system-wide suppression specification file
It’s located by the optional environment variable
LIBABIGAIL_DEFAULT_SYSTEM_SUPPRESSION_FILE. If that environment variable is not set,
then fedabipkgdiff tries to load the suppression file
$libdir/libabigail/libabigail-default.abignore. If that file is not present, then no
default system-wide suppression specification file is loaded.
• Default user suppression specification file.
It’s located by the optional environment LIBABIGAIL_DEFAULT_USER_SUPPRESSION_FILE. If
that environment variable is not set, then fedabipkgdiff tries to load the suppression
file $HOME/.abignore. If that file is not present, then no default user suppression
specification is loaded.
Options
• --help | -h
Display a short help about the command and exit.
• --dry-run
Don’t actually perform the ABI comparison. Details about what is going to be done
are emitted on standard output.
• --debug
Emit debugging messages about the execution of the program. Details about each
method invocation, including input parameters and returned values, are emitted.
• --traceback
Show traceback when an exception raised. This is useful for developers of the tool
itself to know more exceptional errors.
• --server <URL>
Specifies the URL of the Koji XMLRPC service the tool talks to. The default value of
this option is http://koji.fedoraproject.org/kojihub.
• --topurl <URL>
Specifies the URL of the package store the tool downloads RPMs from. The default
value of this option is https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org.
• --from <distro>
Specifies the name of the baseline Fedora distribution in which to find the first
build that is used for comparison. The distro value can be any valid value of the RPM
macro %{?dist} for Fedora, for example, fc4, fc23, fc25.
• --to <distro>
Specifies the name of the Fedora distribution in which to find the build that is
compared against the baseline specified by option --from. The distro value could be
any valid value of the RPM macro %{?dist} for Fedora, for example, fc4, fc23.
• --all-subpackages
Instructs the tool to also compare the ABI of the binaries in the sub-packages of the
packages specified.
• --dso-only
Compares the ABI of shared libraries only. If this option is not provided, the tool
compares the ABI of all ELF binaries found in the packages.
• --suppressions <path-to-suppresions>
Use a suppression specification file located at path-to-suppressions.
• --no-default-suppression
Do not load the default suppression specification files.
• --no-devel-pkg
Do not take associated development packages into account when performing the ABI
comparison. This makes the tool report ABI changes about all types that are
reachable from functions and global variables which symbols are defined and publicly
exported in the binaries being compared, even if those types are not defined in
public header files available from the packages being compared.
• --show-identical-binaries
Show the names of the all binaries compared, including the binaries whose ABI
compare equal. By default, when this option is not provided, only binaries with
ABI changes are mentionned in the output.
• --abipkgdiff <path/to/abipkgdiff>
Specify an alternative abipkgdiff instead of the one installed in system.
• --clean-cache-before
Clean cache before ABI comparison.
• --clean-cache-after
Clean cache after ABI comparison.
• --clean-cache
If you want to clean cache both before and after ABI comparison, --clean-cache is the
convenient way for you to save typing of two options at same time.
Note that a build is a specific version and release of an RPM package. It’s specified by
its the package name, version and release. These are specified by the Fedora Naming
Guidelines
Return value
The exit code of the abipkgdiff command is either 0 if the ABI of the binaries compared
are equivalent, or non-zero if they differ or if the tool encountered an error.
In the later case, the value of the exit code is the same as for the abidiff tool.
Use cases
Below are some usage examples currently supported by fedabipkgdiff.
1. Compare the ABI of binaries in a local package against the ABI of the latest stable
package in Fedora 23.
Suppose you have built just built the httpd package and you want to compare the ABI
of the binaries in this locally built package against the ABI of the binaries in the
latest http build from Fedora 23. The command line invocation would be:
$ fedabipkgdiff --from fc23 ./httpd-2.4.18-2.fc24.x86_64.rpm
2. Compare the ABI of binaries in two local packages.
Suppose you have built two versions of package httpd, and you want to see what ABI
differences between these two versions of RPM files. The command line invocation
would be:
$ fedabipkgdiff path/to/httpd-2.4.23-3.fc23.x86_64.rpm another/path/to/httpd-2.4.23-4.fc24.x86_64.rpm
All what fedabipkgdiff does happens on local machine without the need of querying or
downloading RPMs from Koji.
3. Compare the ABI of binaries in the latest build of the httpd package in Fedora 23
against the ABI of the binaries in the latest build of the same package in 24.
In this case, note that neither of the two packages are available locally. The tool
is going to talk with the Fedora Build System, determine what the versions and
releases of the latest packages are, download them and perform the comparison
locally. The command line invocation would be:
$ fedabipkgdiff --from fc23 --to fc24 httpd
4. Compare the ABI of binaries of two builds of the httpd package, designated their
versions and releases.
If we want to do perform the ABI comparison for all the processor architectures
supported by Fedora the command line invocation would be:
$ fedabipkgdiff httpd-2.8.14.fc23 httpd-2.8.14.fc24
But if we want to perform the ABI comparison for a specific architecture, say,
x86_64, then the command line invocation would be:
$ fedabipkgdiff httpd-2.8.14.fc23.x86_64 httpd-2.8.14.fc24.x86_64
5. If the use wants to also compare the sub-packages of a given package, she can use
the –all-subpackages option. The first command of the previous example would thus
look like:
$ fedabipkgdiff --all-subpackages httpd-2.8.14.fc23 httpd-2.8.14.fc24
CONCEPTS
ABI artifacts
An ABI artifact is a relevant part of the ABI of a shared library or program. Examples of
ABI artifacts are exported types, variables, functions, or ELF symbols exported by a
shared library.
The set of ABI artifact for a binary is called an ABI Corpus.
Harmful changes
A change in the diff report is considered harmful if it might cause ABI compatibility
issues. That is, it might prevent an application dynamically linked against a given
version of a library to keep working with the changed subsequent versions of the same
library.
Harmless changes
A change in the diff report is considered harmless if it will not cause any ABI
compatibility issue. That is, it will not prevent an application dynamically linked
against given version of a library to keep working with the changed subsequent versions of
the same library.
By default, abidiff filters harmless changes from the diff report.
Suppression specifications
Definition
A suppression specification file is a way for a user to instruct abidiff, abipkgdiff or
any other relevant libabigail tool to avoid emitting reports for changes involving certain
ABI artifacts.
It contains directives (or specifications) that describe the set of ABI artifacts to avoid
emitting change reports about.
Introductory examples
Its syntax is based on a simplified and customized form of Ini File Syntax. For instance,
to specify that change reports on a type named FooPrivateType should be suppressed, one
could write this suppression specification:
[suppress_type]
name = FooPrivateType
If we want to ensure that only change reports about structures named FooPrivateType should
be suppressed, we could write:
[suppress_type]
type_kind = struct
name = FooPrivateType
But we could also want to suppress change reports avoid typedefs named FooPrivateType. In
that case we would write:
[suppress_type]
type_kind = typedef
name = FooPrivateType
Or, we could want to suppress change reports about all struct which names end with the
string “PrivateType”:
[suppress_type]
type_kind = struct
name_regexp = ^.*PrivateType
Let’s now look at the generic syntax of suppression specification files.
Syntax
Properties
More generally, the format of suppression lists is organized around the concept of
property. Every property has a name and a value, delimited by the = sign. E.g:
name = value
Leading and trailing white spaces are ignored around property names and values.
Regular expressions
The value of some properties might be a regular expression. In that case, they must
comply with the syntax of extended POSIX regular expressions. Note that Libabigail uses
the regular expression engine of the GNU C Library.
Escaping a character in a regular expression
When trying to match a string that contains a * character, like in the pointer type int*,
one must be careful to notice that the character * is a special character in the extended
POSIX regular expression syntax. And that character must be escaped for the regular
expression engine. Thus the regular expression that would match the string int* in a
suppression file should be
int\\*
Wait; but then why the two \ characters? Well, because the \ character is a special
character in the Ini File Syntax used for specifying suppressions. So it must be escaped
as well, so that the Ini File parser leaves a \ character intact in the data stream that
is handed to the regular expression engine. Hence the \\ targeted at the Ini File parser.
So, in short, to escape a character in a regular expression, always prefix the character
with the \\ sequence.
Modus operandi
Suppression specifications can be applied at two different points of the processing
pipeline of libabigail.
In the default operating mode called “late suppression mode”, suppression specifications
are applied to the result of comparing the in-memory internal representations of two ABIs.
In this mode, if an ABI artifact matches a suppression specification, its changes are not
mentioned in the ABI change report. The internal representation of the “suppressed”
changed ABI artifact is still present in memory; it is just not mentioned in the ABI
change report. The change report can still mention statistics about the number of changed
ABI artifacts that were suppressed.
There is another operating mode called the “early suppression mode” where suppression
specifications are applied during the construction of the in-memory internal
representation of a given ABI. In that mode, if an ABI artifact matches a suppression
specification, no in-memory internal representation is built for it. As a result, no
change about the matched ABI artifact is going to be mentioned in the ABI change report
and no statistic about the number of suppressed ABI changes is available. Also, please
note that because suppressed ABI artifacts are removed from the in-memory internal
representation in this mode, the amount memory used by the internal representation is
potentially smaller than the memory consumption in the late suppression mode.
Sections
Properties are then grouped into arbitrarily named sections that shall not be nested. The
name of the section is on a line by itself and is surrounded by square brackets, i.e:
[section_name]
property1_name = property1_value
property2_name = property2_value
A section might or might not have properties. Sections that expect to have properties and
which are found nonetheless empty are just ignored. Properties that are not recognized by
the reader are ignored as well.
Section names
Each different section can be thought of as being a directive to suppress ABI change
reports for a particular kind of ABI artifact.
[suppress_file]
This directive prevents a given tool from loading a file (binary or abixml file) if its
file name or other properties match certain properties. Thus, if the tool is meant to
compare the ABIs of two files, and if the directive prevents it from loading either one of
the files, then no comparison is performed.
Note that for the [suppress_file] directive to work, at least one of the following
properties must be provided:
file_name_regexp, file_name_not_regexp, soname_regexp, soname_not_regexp.
If none of the above properties are provided, then the [suppress_file] directive is simply
ignored.
The potential properties of this sections are listed below:
• file_name_not_regexp
Usage:
file_name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Prevents the system from loading the file which name does not match the regular
expression specified as value of this property.
• file_name_regexp
Usage:
file_name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Prevents the system from loading the file which name matches the regular expression
specified as value of this property.
• label
Usage:
label = <some-value>
Define a label for the section. A label is just an informative string that might be
used by the tool to refer to a type suppression in error messages.
• soname_regexp
Usage:
soname_regexp = <regular-expression>
Prevents the system from loading the file which contains a SONAME property that matches
the regular expression of this property. Note that this property also works on an
abixml file if it contains a SONAME property.
• soname_not_regexp
Usage:
soname_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Prevents the system from loading the file which contains a SONAME property that does NOT
match the regular expression of this property. Note that this property also works on an
abixml file if it contains a SONAME property.
[suppress_type]
This directive suppresses report messages about a type change.
Note that for the [suppress_type] directive to work, at least one of the following
properties must be provided:
file_name_regexp, file_name_not_regexp, soname_regexp, soname_not_regexp, name,
name_regexp, name_not_regexp, source_location_not_in, source_location_not_regexp,
type_kind.
If none of the above properties are provided, then the [suppress_type] directive is simply
ignored.
The potential properties of this sections are listed below:
• accessed_through
Usage:
accessed_through = <some-predefined-values>
Suppress change reports involving a type which is referred to either directly or
through a pointer or a reference. The potential values of this property are the
predefined keywords below:
• direct
So if the [suppress_type] contains the property description:
accessed_through = direct
then changes about a type that is referred-to directly (i.e, not through a
pointer or a reference) are going to be suppressed.
• pointer
If the accessed_through property is set to the value pointer then changes about a
type that is referred-to through a pointer are going to be suppressed.
• reference
If the accessed_through property is set to the value reference then changes about
a type that is referred-to through a reference are going to be suppressed.
• reference-or-pointer
If the accessed_through property is set to the value reference-or-pointer then
changes about a type that is referred-to through either a reference or a pointer
are going to be suppressed.
For an extensive example of how to use this property, please check out the example
below about suppressing change reports about types accessed either directly or through
pointers.
• changed_enumerators
Usage:
changed_enumerators = <list-of-enumerators>
Suppresses change reports involving changes in the value of enumerators of a given enum
type. This property is applied if the type_kind property is set to the value enum, at
least. The value of the changed_enumerators is a comma-separated list of the
enumerators that the user expects to change. For instance:
changed_enumerators = LAST_ENUMERATORS0, LAST_ENUMERATOR1
• changed_enumerators_regexp
Usage:
changed_enumerators_regexp = <list-of-enumerator-regular-expressions>
Suppresses change reports involving changes in the value of enumerators of a given enum
type. This property is applied if the type_kind property is set to the value enum, at
least. The value of the changed_enumerators_regexp property is a comma-separated list
of regular expressions that should match the names of the enumerators that the user
expects to change. For instance:
changed_enumerators_regexp = .*_MAX$, .*_LAST$, .*_NUM$, .*_NBITS$
In the example above, change reports to any enumerator which name ends with _MAX, _LAST,
_NUM or _NBITS will be suppressed.
Note that for this property to be applied to changes to an enum type, the size of the
enum type must NOT have changed.
• drop
Usage:
drop = yes | no
If a type is matched by a suppression specification which contains the “drop” property
set to “yes” (or to “true”) then the type is not even going to be represented in the
internal representation of the ABI being analyzed. This property makes its enclosing
suppression specification to be applied in the early suppression specification mode.
The net effect is that it potentially reduces the memory used to represent the ABI
being analyzed.
Please note that for this property to be effective, the enclosing suppression
specification must have at least one of the following properties specified:
name_regexp, name, name_regexp, source_location_not_in or source_location_not_regexp.
• file_name_not_regexp
Usage:
file_name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a binary file which
name does not match the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• file_name_regexp
Usage:
file_name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a binary file which
name matches the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• has_data_member
Usage:
has_data_member = <list-of-data-member-names>
Suppresses change reports involving a type which contains data members whose names are
provided in the list value of this property.
A usage examples of this property would be:
has_data_member = {private_data_member0, private_data_member1}
The property above would match any type which contains at least two data members whose
names are private_data_member0 and private_data_member1.
Another usage examples of this property would be:
has_data_member = another_private_data_member
The property above would match any type which contains a data member which name is
another_private_data_member0.
• has_data_member_regexp
Usage:
has_data_member_regexp = <a-regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving a type which contains data members whose names match
the regular expression provided as the value of this property.
A usage examples of this property would be:
has_data_member_regexp = ^private_data_member
The property above would match any type which contains data members whose names match the
regular expression ^private_data_member. In other words, it would match any type which
contains data members whose names start with the string “private_data_member”.
• has_data_member_inserted_at
Usage:
has_data_member_inserted_at = <offset-in-bit>
Suppresses change reports involving a type which has at least one data member inserted
at an offset specified by the property value offset-in-bit. Please note that if the
size of the type changed, then the type change will NOT be suppressed by the evaluation
of this property, unless the has_size_change property is present and set to yes.
The value offset-in-bit is either:
• an integer value, expressed in bits, which denotes the offset of the insertion
point of the data member, starting from the beginning of the relevant structure
or class.
• data member offset selector expressions, such as:
• the keyword end which is a named constant which value equals the offset of
the end of the structure or class.
• the keyword offset_of_flexible_array_data_member which is a named constant
that evaluates to the offset of the flexible array data member contained in
the relevant structure.
• the function call expression offset_of(data-member-name) where
data-member-name is the name of a given data member of the relevant
structure or class. The value of this function call expression is an
integer that represents the offset of the data member denoted by
data-member-name.
• the function call expression offset_after(data-member-name) where
data-member-name is the name of a given data member of the relevant
structure or class. The value of this function call expression is an
integer that represents the offset of the point that comes right after the
region occupied by the data member denoted by data-member-name.
• the function call expression
offset_of_first_data_member_regexp(data-member-name-regexp) where
data-member-name-regexp is a regular expression matching a data member. The
value of this function call expression is an integer that represents the
offset of the first data member which name matches the regular expression
argument. If no data member of a given class type matches the regular
expression, then the class type won’t match the current directive.
• the function call expression
offset_of_last_data_member_regexp(data-member-name-regexp) where
data-member-name-regexp is a regular expression matching a data member. The
value of this function call expression is an integer that represents the
offset of the last data member which name matches the regular expression
argument. If no data member of a given class type matches the regular
expression, then the class type won’t match the current directive.
• has_data_member_inserted_between
Usage:
has_data_member_inserted_between = {<range-begin>, <range-end>}
Suppresses change reports involving a type which has at least one data member inserted
at an offset that is comprised in the range between range-begin and range-end. Please
note that each of the values range-begin and range-end can be of the same form as the
has_data_member_inserted_at property above. Please also note that if the size of the
type changed, then the type change will NOT be suppressed by the evaluation of this
property, unless the has_size_change property is present and set to yes. Note that
data member deletions happening in the range between range-begin and range-end won’t
prevent the type change from being suppressed by the evaluation of this property if the
size of the type doesn’t change or if the has_size_change property is present and set
to yes.
Usage examples of this properties are:
has_data_member_inserted_between = {8, 64}
or:
has_data_member_inserted_between = {16, end}
or:
has_data_member_inserted_between = {offset_after(member1), end}
• has_data_members_inserted_between
Usage:
has_data_members_inserted_between = {<sequence-of-ranges>}
Suppresses change reports involving a type which has multiple data member inserted in
various offset ranges. A usage example of this property is, for instance:
has_data_members_inserted_between = {{8, 31}, {72, 95}}
This usage example suppresses change reports involving a type which has data members
inserted in bit offset ranges [8 31] and [72 95]. The length of the sequence of ranges
or this has_data_members_inserted_between is not bounded; it can be as long as the
system can cope with. The values of the boundaries of the ranges are of the same kind
as for the has_data_member_inserted_at property above. Please also note that if the
size of the type changed, then the type will NOT be suppressed by the evaluation of
this property, unless the has_size_change property is present and set to yes. Note
that data member deletions happening in the defined ranges won’t prevent the type
change from being suppressed by the evaluation of this property if the size of the type
doesn’t change or if the has_size_change property is present and set to yes.
Another usage example of this property is thus:
has_data_members_inserted_between =
{
{offset_after(member0), offset_of(member1)},
{72, end}
}
• has_strict_flexible_array_data_member_conversion
Usage:
has_strict_flexible_array_data_member_conversion = yes | no
Suppresses change reports involving a type which has a “fake” flexible array member at
the end of the struct which is converted to a real flexible array member. This would be
a member like data[1] being converted to data[].
Please note that if the size of the type changed, then the type change will NOT be
suppressed by the evaluation of this property, unless the has_size_change property is
present and set to yes.
• has_size_change
Usage:
has_size_change = yes | no
This property is to be used in conjunction with the properties
has_data_member_inserted_between, has_data_members_inserted_between, and
has_strict_flexible_array_data_member_conversion Those properties will not match a type
change if the size of the type changes, unless the has_size_changes property is set to
yes.
• label
Usage:
label = <some-value>
Define a label for the section. A label is just an informative string that might be
used by a tool to refer to a type suppression in error messages.
• name
Usage:
name = <a-value>
Suppresses change reports involving types whose name equals the value of this property.
• name_not_regexp
Usage:
name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving types whose name does NOT match the regular
expression specified as value of this property. Said otherwise, this property
specifies which types to keep, rather than types to suppress from reports.
• name_regexp
Usage:
name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving types whose name matches the regular expression
specified as value of this property.
• soname_not_regexp
Usage:
soname_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a shared library which
SONAME property does not match the regular expression specified as value of this
property.
• soname_regexp
Usage:
soname_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a shared library which
SONAME property matches the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• source_location_not_in
Usage:
source_location_not_in = <list-of-file-paths>
Suppresses change reports involving a type which is defined in a file which path is NOT
listed in the value list-of-file-paths. Note that the value is a comma-separated list
of file paths e.g, this property
source_location_not_in = libabigail/abg-ir.h, libabigail/abg-dwarf-reader.h
suppresses change reports about all the types that are NOT defined in header files
whose path end up with the strings libabigail/abg-ir.h or
libabigail/abg-dwarf-reader.h.
• source_location_not_regexp
Usage:
source_location_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving a type which is defined in a file which path does
NOT match the regular expression provided as value of the property. E.g, this property
source_location_not_regexp = libabigail/abg-.*\\.h
suppresses change reports involving all the types that are NOT defined in header files
whose path match the regular expression provided a value of the property.
• type_kind
Usage:
type_kind = class | struct | union | enum |
array | typedef | builtin
Suppresses change reports involving a certain kind of type. The kind of type to
suppress change reports for is specified by the possible values listed above:
•
class: suppress change reports for class types. Note that
even if class types don’t exist for C, this value still triggers the
suppression of change reports for struct types, in C. In C++ however, it
should do what it suggests.
•
struct: suppress change reports for struct types in C or C++.
Note that the value class above is a super-set of this one.
• union: suppress change reports for union types.
• enum: suppress change reports for enum types.
• array: suppress change reports for array types.
• typedef: suppress change reports for typedef types.
• builtin: suppress change reports for built-in (or native) types. Example of
built-in types are char, int, unsigned int, etc.
[suppress_function]
This directive suppresses report messages about changes on a set of functions.
Note that for the [suppress_function] directive to work, at least one of the following
properties must be provided:
label, file_name_regexp, file_name_not_regexp, soname_regexp, soname_not_regexp, name,
name_regexp, name_not_regexp, parameter, return_type_name, return_type_regexp,
symbol_name, symbol_name_regexp, symbol_name_not_regexp, symbol_version,
symbol_version_regexp.
If none of the above properties are provided, then the [suppress_function] directive is
simply ignored.
The potential properties of this sections are:
• change_kind
Usage:
change_kind = <predefined-possible-values>
Specifies the kind of changes this suppression specification should apply to. The
possible values of this property as well as their meaning are listed below:
• function-subtype-change
This suppression specification applies to functions that which have at least one
sub-type that has changed.
• added-function
This suppression specification applies to functions that have been added to the
binary.
• deleted-function
This suppression specification applies to functions that have been removed from
the binary.
• all
This suppression specification applies to functions that have all of the changes
above. Note that not providing the change_kind property at all is equivalent to
setting it to the value all.
• drop
Usage:
drop = yes | no
If a function is matched by a suppression specification which contains the “drop”
property set to “yes” (or to “true”) then the function is not even going to be
represented in the internal representation of the ABI being analyzed. This property
makes its enclosing suppression specification to be applied in the early suppression
specification mode. The net effect is that it potentially reduces the memory used to
represent the ABI being analyzed.
Please note that for this property to be effective, the enclosing suppression
specification must have at least one of the following properties specified:
name_regexp, name, name_regexp, source_location_not_in or source_location_not_regexp.
• file_name_not_regexp
Usage:
file_name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a binary file which
name does not match the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• file_name_regexp
Usage:
file_name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a binary file which
name matches the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• label
Usage:
label = <some-value>
This property is the same as the label property defined above.
• name
Usage:
name = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose name equals the value of this
property.
• name_not_regexp
Usage:
name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose names don’t match the regular
expression specified as value of this property.
The rules for functions that have several symbol names are the same rules as for the
name_regexp property above.
• name_regexp
Usage:
name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose name matches the regular expression
specified as value of this property.
Let’s consider the case of functions that have several symbol names. This happens when
the underlying symbol for the function has aliases. Each symbol name is actually one
alias name.
In this case, if the regular expression matches the name of at least one of the aliases
names, then it must match the names of all of the aliases of the function for the
directive to actually suppress the diff reports for said function.
• parameter
Usage:
parameter = <function-parameter-specification>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose parameters match the parameter
specification indicated as value of this property.
The format of the function parameter specification is:
' <parameter-index> <space> <type-name-or-regular-expression>
That is, an apostrophe followed by a number that is the index of the parameter,
followed by one of several spaces, followed by either the name of the type of the
parameter, or a regular expression describing a family of parameter type names.
If the parameter type name is designated by a regular expression, then said regular
expression must be enclosed between two slashes; like /some-regular-expression/.
The index of the first parameter of the function is zero. Note that for member
functions (methods of classes), the this is the first parameter that comes after the
implicit “this” pointer parameter.
Examples of function parameter specifications are:
'0 int
Which means, the parameter at index 0, whose type name is int.
'4 unsigned char*
Which means, the parameter at index 4, whose type name is unsigned char*.
'2 /^foo.*&/
Which means, the parameter at index 2, whose type name starts with the string “foo” and
ends with an ‘&’. In other words, this is the third parameter and it’s a reference on
a type that starts with the string “foo”.
• return_type_name
Usage:
return_type_name = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose return type name equals the value
of this property.
• return_type_regexp
Usage:
return_type_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose return type name matches the
regular expression specified as value of this property.
• soname_regexp
Usage:
soname_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a shared library which
SONAME property matches the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• soname_not_regexp
Usage:
soname_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a shared library which
SONAME property does not match the regular expression specified as value of this
property.
• symbol_name
Usage:
symbol_name = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose symbol name equals the value of
this property.
• symbol_name_regexp
Usage:
symbol_name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose symbol name matches the regular
expression specified as value of this property.
Let’s consider the case of functions that have several symbol names. This happens when
the underlying symbol for the function has aliases. Each symbol name is actually one
alias name.
In this case, the regular expression must match the names of all of the aliases of the
function for the directive to actually suppress the diff reports for said function.
• symbol_name_not_regexp
Usage:
symbol_name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose symbol name does not match the
regular expression specified as value of this property.
• symbol_version
Usage:
symbol_version = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose symbol version equals the value of
this property.
• symbol_version_regexp
Usage:
symbol_version_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving functions whose symbol version matches the regular
expression specified as value of this property.
[suppress_variable]
This directive suppresses report messages about changes on a set of variables.
Note that for the [suppress_variable] directive to work, at least one of the following
properties must be provided:
label, file_name_regexp, file_name_not_regexp, soname_regexp, soname_not_regexp, name,
name_regexp, name_not_regexp, symbol_name, symbol_name_regexp, symbol_name_not_regexp,
symbol_version, symbol_version_regexp, type_name, type_name_regexp.
If none of the above properties are provided, then the [suppress_variable] directive is
simply ignored.
The potential properties of this sections are:
• label
Usage:
label = <some-value>
This property is the same as the label property defined above.
• file_name_regexp
Usage:
file_name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a binary file which
name matches the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• file_name_not_regexp
Usage:
file_name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a binary file which
name does not match the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• soname_regexp
Usage:
soname_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a shared library which
SONAME property matches the regular expression specified as value of this property.
• soname_not_regexp
Usage:
soname_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports about ABI artifacts that are defined in a shared library which
SONAME property does not match the regular expression specified as value of this
property.
• name
Usage:
name = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose name equals the value of this
property.
• name_regexp
Usage:
name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose name matches the regular expression
specified as value of this property.
• change_kind
Usage:
change_kind = <predefined-possible-values>
Specifies the kind of changes this suppression specification should apply to. The
possible values of this property as well as their meaning are the same as when it’s
used in the [suppress_function] section.
• symbol_name
Usage:
symbol_name = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose symbol name equals the value of
this property.
• symbol_name_regexp
Usage:
symbol_name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose symbol name matches the regular
expression specified as value of this property.
• symbol_name_not_regexp
Usage:
symbol_name_not_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose symbol name does not match the
regular expression specified as value of this property.
• symbol_version
Usage:
symbol_version = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose symbol version equals the value of
this property.
• symbol_version_regexp
Usage:
symbol_version_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose symbol version matches the regular
expression specified as value of this property.
• type_name
Usage:
type_name = <some-value>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose type name equals the value of this
property.
• type_name_regexp
Usage:
type_name_regexp = <regular-expression>
Suppresses change reports involving variables whose type name matches the regular
expression specified as value of this property.
Comments
; or # ASCII character at the beginning of a line indicates a comment. Comment lines are
ignored.
Code examples
1. Suppressing change reports about types.
Suppose we have a library named libtest1-v0.so which contains this very useful code:
$ cat -n test1-v0.cc
1 // A forward declaration for a type considered to be opaque to
2 // function foo() below.
3 struct opaque_type;
4
5 // This function cannot touch any member of opaque_type. Hence,
6 // changes to members of opaque_type should not impact foo, as far as
7 // ABI is concerned.
8 void
9 foo(opaque_type*)
10 {
11 }
12
13 struct opaque_type
14 {
15 int member0;
16 char member1;
17 };
$
Let’s change the layout of struct opaque_type by inserting a data member around line 15,
leading to a new version of the library, that we shall name libtest1-v1.so:
$ cat -n test1-v1.cc
1 // A forward declaration for a type considered to be opaque to
2 // function foo() below.
3 struct opaque_type;
4
5 // This function cannot touch any member of opaque_type; Hence,
6 // changes to members of opaque_type should not impact foo, as far as
7 // ABI is concerned.
8 void
9 foo(opaque_type*)
10 {
11 }
12
13 struct opaque_type
14 {
15 char added_member; // <-- a new member got added here now.
16 int member0;
17 char member1;
18 };
$
Let’s compile both examples. We shall not forget to compile them with debug information
generation turned on:
$ g++ -shared -g -Wall -o libtest1-v0.so test1-v0.cc
$ g++ -shared -g -Wall -o libtest1-v1.so test1-v1.cc
Let’s ask abidiff which ABI differences it sees between libtest1-v0.so and libtest1-v1.so:
$ abidiff libtest1-v0.so libtest1-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed, 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void foo(opaque_type*)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'opaque_type*' has sub-type changes:
in pointed to type 'struct opaque_type':
size changed from 64 to 96 bits
1 data member insertion:
'char opaque_type::added_member', at offset 0 (in bits)
2 data member changes:
'int opaque_type::member0' offset changed from 0 to 32
'char opaque_type::member1' offset changed from 32 to 64
So abidiff reports that the opaque_type’s layout has changed in a significant way, as far
as ABI implications are concerned, in theory. After all, a sub-type (struct opaque_type)
of an exported function (foo()) has seen its layout change. This might have non
negligible ABI implications. But in practice here, the programmer of the litest1-v1.so
library knows that the “soft” contract between the function foo() and the type struct
opaque_type is to stay away from the data members of the type. So layout changes of
struct opaque_type should not impact foo().
Now to teach abidiff about this soft contract and have it avoid emitting what amounts to
false positives in this case, we write the suppression specification file below:
$ cat test1.suppr
[suppress_type]
type_kind = struct
name = opaque_type
Translated in plain English, this suppression specification would read: “Do not emit
change reports about a struct which name is opaque_type”.
Let’s now invoke abidiff on the two versions of the library again, but this time with the
suppression specification:
$ abidiff --suppressions test1.suppr libtest1-v0.so libtest1-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed (1 filtered out), 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
As you can see, abidiff does not report the change anymore; it tells us that it was
filtered out instead.
Suppressing change reports about types with data member insertions
Suppose the first version of a library named libtest3-v0.so has this source code:
/* Compile this with:
gcc -g -Wall -shared -o libtest3-v0.so test3-v0.c
*/
struct S
{
char member0;
int member1; /*
between member1 and member2, there is some padding,
at least on some popular platforms. On
these platforms, adding a small enough data
member into that padding shouldn't change
the offset of member1. Right?
*/
};
int
foo(struct S* s)
{
return s->member0 + s->member1;
}
Now, suppose the second version of the library named libtest3-v1.so has this source code
in which a data member has been added in the padding space of struct S and another data
member has been added at its end:
/* Compile this with:
gcc -g -Wall -shared -o libtest3-v1.so test3-v1.c
*/
struct S
{
char member0;
char inserted1; /* <---- A data member has been added here... */
int member1;
char inserted2; /* <---- ... and another one has been added here. */
};
int
foo(struct S* s)
{
return s->member0 + s->member1;
}
In libtest3-v1.so, adding char data members S::inserted1 and S::inserted2 can be
considered harmless (from an ABI compatibility perspective), at least on the x86 platform,
because that doesn’t change the offsets of the data members S::member0 and S::member1.
But then running abidiff on these two versions of library yields:
$ abidiff libtest3-v0.so libtest3-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed, 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function int foo(S*)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'S*' has sub-type changes:
in pointed to type 'struct S':
type size changed from 64 to 96 bits
2 data member insertions:
'char S::inserted1', at offset 8 (in bits)
'char S::inserted2', at offset 64 (in bits)
$
That is, abidiff shows us the two changes, even though we (the developers of that very
involved library) know that these changes are harmless in this particular context.
Luckily, we can devise a suppression specification that essentially tells abidiff to
filter out change reports about adding a data member between S::member0 and S::member1,
and adding a data member at the end of struct S. We have written such a suppression
specification in a file called test3-1.suppr and it unsurprisingly looks like:
[suppress_type]
name = S
has_data_member_inserted_between = {offset_after(member0), offset_of(member1)}
has_data_member_inserted_at = end
Now running abidiff with this suppression specification yields:
$ ../build/tools/abidiff --suppressions test3-1.suppr libtest3-v0.so libtest3-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed (1 filtered out), 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
$
Hooora! \o/ (I guess)
Suppressing change reports about types accessed either directly or through pointers
Suppose we have a first version of an object file which source code is the file
widget-v0.cc below:
// Compile with: g++ -g -c widget-v0.cc
struct widget
{
int x;
int y;
widget()
:x(), y()
{}
};
void
fun0(widget*)
{
// .. do stuff here.
}
void
fun1(widget&)
{
// .. do stuff here ..
}
void
fun2(widget w)
{
// ... do other stuff here ...
}
Now suppose in the second version of that file, named widget-v1.cc, we have added some
data members at the end of the type struct widget; here is what the content of that file
would look like:
// Compile with: g++ -g -c widget-v1.cc
struct widget
{
int x;
int y;
int w; // We have added these two new data members here ..
int h; // ... and here.
widget()
: x(), y(), w(), h()
{}
};
void
fun0(widget*)
{
// .. do stuff here.
}
void
fun1(widget&)
{
// .. do stuff here ..
}
void
fun2(widget w)
{
// ... do other stuff here ...
}
When we invoke abidiff on the object files resulting from the compilation of the two file
above, here is what we get:
$ abidiff widget-v0.o widget-v1.o
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 2 Changed (1 filtered out), 0 Added functions
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
2 functions with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void fun0(widget*)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 1 of type 'widget*' has sub-type changes:
in pointed to type 'struct widget':
type size changed from 64 to 128 bits
2 data member insertions:
'int widget::w', at offset 64 (in bits)
'int widget::h', at offset 96 (in bits)
[C]'function void fun2(widget)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 1 of type 'struct widget' has sub-type changes:
details were reported earlier
$
I guess a little bit of explaining is due here. abidiff detects that two data member got
added at the end of struct widget. it also tells us that the type change impacts the
exported function fun0() which uses the type struct widget through a pointer, in its
signature.
Careful readers will notice that the change to struct widget also impacts the exported
function fun1(), that uses type struct widget through a reference. But then abidiff
doesn’t tell us about the impact on that function fun1() because it has evaluated that
change as being redundant with the change it reported on fun0(). It has thus filtered it
out, to avoid cluttering the output with noise.
Redundancy detection and filtering is fine and helpful to avoid burying the important
information in a sea of noise. However, it must be treated with care, by fear of
mistakenly filtering out relevant and important information.
That is why abidiff tells us about the impact that the change to struct widget has on
function fun2(). In this case, that function uses the type struct widget directly (in its
signature). It does not use it via a pointer or a reference. In this case, the direct
use of this type causes fun2() to be exposed to a potentially harmful ABI change. Hence,
the report about fun2() is not filtered out, even though it’s about that same change on
struct widget.
To go further in suppressing reports about changes that are harmless and keeping only
those that we know are harmful, we would like to go tell abidiff to suppress reports about
this particular struct widget change when it impacts uses of struct widget through a
pointer or reference. In other words, suppress the change reports about fun0() and
fun1(). We would then write this suppression specification, in file widget.suppr:
[suppress_type]
name = widget
type_kind = struct
has_data_member_inserted_at = end
accessed_through = reference-or-pointer
# So this suppression specification says to suppress reports about
# the type 'struct widget', if this type was added some data member
# at its end, and if the change impacts uses of the type through a
# reference or a pointer.
Invoking abidiff on widget-v0.o and widget-v1.o with this suppression specification
yields:
$ abidiff --suppressions widget.suppr widget-v0.o widget-v1.o
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed (2 filtered out), 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function void fun2(widget)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 1 of type 'struct widget' has sub-type changes:
type size changed from 64 to 128 bits
2 data member insertions:
'int widget::w', at offset 64 (in bits)
'int widget::h', at offset 96 (in bits)
$
As expected, I guess.
Suppressing change reports about functions.
Suppose we have a first version a library named libtest2-v0.so whose source code is:
$ cat -n test2-v0.cc
1 struct S1
2 {
3 int m0;
4
5 S1()
6 : m0()
7 {}
8 };
9
10 struct S2
11 {
12 int m0;
13
14 S2()
15 : m0()
16 {}
17 };
18
19 struct S3
20 {
21 int m0;
22
23 S3()
24 : m0()
25 {}
26 };
27
28 int
29 func(S1&)
30 {
31 // suppose the code does something with the argument.
32 return 0;
33
34 }
35
36 char
37 func(S2*)
38 {
39 // suppose the code does something with the argument.
40 return 0;
41 }
42
43 unsigned
44 func(S3)
45 {
46 // suppose the code does something with the argument.
47 return 0;
48 }
$
And then we come up with a second version libtest2-v1.so of that library; the source code
is modified by making the structures S1, S2, S3 inherit another struct:
$ cat -n test2-v1.cc
1 struct base_type
2 {
3 int m_inserted;
4 };
5
6 struct S1 : public base_type // <--- S1 now has base_type as its base
7 // type.
8 {
9 int m0;
10
11 S1()
12 : m0()
13 {}
14 };
15
16 struct S2 : public base_type // <--- S2 now has base_type as its base
17 // type.
18 {
19 int m0;
20
21 S2()
22 : m0()
23 {}
24 };
25
26 struct S3 : public base_type // <--- S3 now has base_type as its base
27 // type.
28 {
29 int m0;
30
31 S3()
32 : m0()
33 {}
34 };
35
36 int
37 func(S1&)
38 {
39 // suppose the code does something with the argument.
40 return 0;
41
42 }
43
44 char
45 func(S2*)
46 {
47 // suppose the code does something with the argument.
48 return 0;
49 }
50
51 unsigned
52 func(S3)
53 {
54 // suppose the code does something with the argument.
55 return 0;
56 }
$
Now let’s build the two libraries:
g++ -Wall -g -shared -o libtest2-v0.so test2-v0.cc
g++ -Wall -g -shared -o libtest2-v0.so test2-v0.cc
Let’s look at the output of abidiff:
$ abidiff libtest2-v0.so libtest2-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 3 Changed, 0 Added functions
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
3 functions with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function unsigned int func(S3)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'struct S3' has sub-type changes:
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 base class insertion:
struct base_type
1 data member change:
'int S3::m0' offset changed from 0 to 32
[C]'function char func(S2*)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'S2*' has sub-type changes:
in pointed to type 'struct S2':
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 base class insertion:
struct base_type
1 data member change:
'int S2::m0' offset changed from 0 to 32
[C]'function int func(S1&)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'S1&' has sub-type changes:
in referenced type 'struct S1':
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 base class insertion:
struct base_type
1 data member change:
'int S1::m0' offset changed from 0 to 32
$
Let’s tell abidiff to avoid showing us the differences on the overloads of func that takes
either a pointer or a reference. For that, we author this simple suppression
specification:
$ cat -n libtest2.suppr
1 [suppress_function]
2 name = func
3 parameter = '0 S1&
4
5 [suppress_function]
6 name = func
7 parameter = '0 S2*
$
And then let’s invoke abidiff with the suppression specification:
$ ../build/tools/abidiff --suppressions libtest2.suppr libtest2-v0.so libtest2-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed (2 filtered out), 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function unsigned int func(S3)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'struct S3' has sub-type changes:
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 base class insertion:
struct base_type
1 data member change:
'int S3::m0' offset changed from 0 to 32
The suppression specification could be reduced using regular expressions:
$ cat -n libtest2-1.suppr
1 [suppress_function]
2 name = func
3 parameter = '0 /^S.(&|\\*)/
$
$ ../build/tools/abidiff --suppressions libtest2-1.suppr libtest2-v0.so libtest2-v1.so
Functions changes summary: 0 Removed, 1 Changed (2 filtered out), 0 Added function
Variables changes summary: 0 Removed, 0 Changed, 0 Added variable
1 function with some indirect sub-type change:
[C]'function unsigned int func(S3)' has some indirect sub-type changes:
parameter 0 of type 'struct S3' has sub-type changes:
size changed from 32 to 64 bits
1 base class insertion:
struct base_type
1 data member change:
'int S3::m0' offset changed from 0 to 32
$
AUTHOR
Dodji Seketeli
COPYRIGHT
2014-2024, Red Hat, Inc.
Mar 31, 2024 LIBABIGAIL(7)