Ubuntu Manpage: llvm-strip - object stripping tool

NAME

       llvm-strip - object stripping tool

SYNOPSIS

       llvm-strip [options] inputs…

DESCRIPTION

       llvm-strip  is  a  tool  to  strip  sections  and  symbols from object files.  If no other
       stripping or remove options are specified, --strip-all will be enabled.

       By default, the input files are modified in-place. If “-” is specified for the input file,
       the input is read from the program’s standard input stream.

       If  the  input  is  an  archive,  any requested operations will be applied to each archive
       member individually.

       The tool is still in active development, but in most  scenarios  it  works  as  a  drop-in
       replacement for GNU’s strip.

GENERIC AND CROSS-PLATFORM OPTIONS

The following options are either agnostic of the file format, or apply to multiple file
formats.

--disable-deterministic-archives, -U
Use real values for UIDs, GIDs and timestamps when updating archive member headers.

--discard-all, -x
Remove most local symbols from the output. Different file formats may limit this to
a subset of the local symbols. For example, file and section symbols in ELF objects
will not be discarded. Additionally, remove all debug sections.

--enable-deterministic-archives, -D
Enable deterministic mode when stripping archives, i.e. use 0 for archive member
header UIDs, GIDs and timestamp fields. On by default.

--help, -h
Print a summary of command line options.

--no-strip-all
Disable --strip-all.

-o <file>
Write output to <file>. Multiple input files cannot be used in combination with -o.

--only-keep-debug
Produce a debug file as the output that only preserves contents of sections useful
for debugging purposes.

For ELF objects, this removes the contents of SHF_ALLOC sections that are not
SHT_NOTE by making them SHT_NOBITS and shrinking the program headers where
possible.

--regex
If specified, symbol and section names specified by other switches are treated as
extended POSIX regular expression patterns.

--remove-section <section>, -R
Remove the specified section from the output. Can be specified multiple times to
remove multiple sections simultaneously.

--strip-all-gnu
Remove all symbols, debug sections and relocations from the output. This option is
equivalent to GNU strip’s --strip-all switch.

--strip-all, -s
For ELF objects, remove from the output all symbols and non-alloc sections not
within segments, except for .gnu.warning, .ARM.attribute sections and the section
name table.

For COFF objects, remove all symbols, debug sections, and relocations from the
output.

--strip-debug, -d, -g, -S
Remove all debug sections from the output.

--strip-symbol <symbol>, -N
Remove all symbols named <symbol> from the output. Can be specified multiple times
to remove multiple symbols.

--strip-unneeded
Remove from the output all local or undefined symbols that are not required by
relocations. Also remove all debug sections.

--version, -V
Display the version of the llvm-strip executable.

--wildcard, -w
Allow wildcard syntax for symbol-related flags. On by default for section-related
flags. Incompatible with –regex.

Wildcard syntax allows the following special symbols:

┌───────────────┬──────────────────────────┬────────────┐
│Character │ Meaning │ Equivalent │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│* │ Any number of characters │ .* │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│? │ Any single character │ . │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│\ │ Escape the next │ \ │
│ │ character │ │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│[a-z] │ Character class │ [a-z] │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│[!a-z], [^a-z] │ Negated character class │ [^a-z] │
└───────────────┴──────────────────────────┴────────────┘

Additionally, starting a wildcard with ‘!’ will prevent a match, even if another
flag matches. For example -w -N '*' -N '!x' will strip all symbols except for x.

The order of wildcards does not matter. For example, -w -N '*' -N '!x' is the same
as -w -N '!x' -N '*'.

@<FILE>
Read command-line options and commands from response file <FILE>.

ELF-SPECIFIC OPTIONS

       The following options are implemented only for ELF objects. If used  with  other  objects,
       llvm-strip will either emit an error or silently ignore them.

       --allow-broken-links
              Allow  llvm-strip  to  remove  sections  even  if  it  would  leave invalid section
              references. Any invalid sh_link fields will be set to zero.

       --discard-locals, -X
              Remove local symbols starting with “.L” from the output.

       --keep-file-symbols
              Keep symbols of type STT_FILE, even if they would otherwise be stripped.

       --keep-section <section>
              When removing sections from the output, do not remove sections named <section>. Can
              be specified multiple times to keep multiple sections.

       --keep-symbol <symbol>, -K
              When removing symbols from the output, do not remove symbols named <symbol>. Can be
              specified multiple times to keep multiple symbols.

       --preserve-dates, -p
              Preserve access and modification timestamps in the output.

       --strip-sections
              Remove from the output  all  section  headers  and  all  section  data  not  within
              segments.  Note  that  many tools will not be able to use an object without section
              headers.

       -T     Remove Swift symbols.

EXIT STATUS

       llvm-strip exits with a non-zero exit code if there is an error.  Otherwise, it exits with
       code 0.

BUGS

       To             report             bugs,             please             visit            <‐
       https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/labels/tools:llvm-objcopy%2Fstrip>.

AUTHOR

       Maintained by the LLVM Team (https://llvm.org/).

COPYRIGHT

       2003-2024, LLVM Project