Examining Object Files

Examining Object Files

The objdump command is another useful tool on Linux for analyzing binary object files. DUMPBIN is the comparable tool on Windows for MSVS (or you can use the LINK command with the “/DUMP” option). These tools can get to the assembly language text in reverse, by disassembling the binary instructions that are in the object file, in combination with the various symbolic information.

objdump can be used to examine object files in various ways and there are various useful options. The “-d” and “-D” options provide disassembly where you can examine a full dump of the assembly code in printable form (as an alternative path to the “-S” option). The “-h” option shows the headers of the object file and “-g” shows debugging information in the file. There are numerous other options and the “--help” option can be used to list all options. The objdump command is part of Gnu Binutils, which also includes other useful binary file tools such as nm, size, strip, and strings utilities.

DUMPBIN also has various options that can be used on the DOS command-line. The default is “/SUMMARY” for a summary of the information about the object file. The “/DISASM” command shows the disassembly of the object file, which is in assembly language. Also useful is “/SYMBOLS” to show the symbolic names.

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