NM(1) GNU Development Tools NM(1)
NAME
nm - list symbols from object files
SYNOPSIS
nm [-A|-o|--print-file-name]
[-a|--debug-syms]
[-B|--format=bsd]
[-C|--demangle[=style]]
[-D|--dynamic]
[-fformat|--format=format]
[-g|--extern-only]
[-h|--help]
[--ifunc-chars=CHARS]
[-j|--format=just-symbols]
[-l|--line-numbers] [--inlines]
[-n|-v|--numeric-sort]
[-P|--portability]
[-p|--no-sort]
[-r|--reverse-sort]
[-S|--print-size]
[-s|--print-armap]
[-t radix|--radix=radix]
[-u|--undefined-only]
[-U|--defined-only]
[-V|--version]
[-W|--no-weak]
[-X 32_64]
[--no-demangle]
[--no-recurse-limit|--recurse-limit]]
[--plugin name]
[--size-sort]
[--special-syms]
[--synthetic]
[--target=bfdname]
[--unicode=method]
[--with-symbol-versions]
[--without-symbol-versions]
[objfile...]
DESCRIPTION
GNU nm lists the symbols from object files objfile.... If no object
files are listed as arguments, nm assumes the file a.out.
For each symbol, nm shows:
• The symbol value, in the radix selected by options (see below), or
hexadecimal by default.
• The symbol type. At least the following types are used; others are,
as well, depending on the object file format. If lowercase, the
symbol is usually local; if uppercase, the symbol is global
(external). There are however a few lowercase symbols that are
shown for special global symbols ("u", "v" and "w").
"A" The symbol's value is absolute, and will not be changed by
further linking.
"B"
"b" The symbol is in the BSS data section. This section typically
contains zero-initialized or uninitialized data, although the
exact behavior is system dependent.
"C"
"c" The symbol is common. Common symbols are uninitialized data.
When linking, multiple common symbols may appear with the same
name. If the symbol is defined anywhere, the common symbols are
treated as undefined references. The lower case c character is
used when the symbol is in a special section for small commons.
"D"
"d" The symbol is in the initialized data section.
"G"
"g" The symbol is in an initialized data section for small objects.
Some object file formats permit more efficient access to small
data objects, such as a global int variable as opposed to a
large global array.
"i" For PE format files this indicates that the symbol is in a
section specific to the implementation of DLLs.
For ELF format files this indicates that the symbol is an
indirect function. This is a GNU extension to the standard set
of ELF symbol types. It indicates a symbol which if referenced
by a relocation does not evaluate to its address, but instead
must be invoked at runtime. The runtime execution will then
return the value to be used in the relocation.
Note - the actual symbols display for GNU indirect symbols is
controlled by the --ifunc-chars command line option. If this
option has been provided then the first character in the string
will be used for global indirect function symbols. If the
string contains a second character then that will be used for
local indirect function symbols.
"I" The symbol is an indirect reference to another symbol.
"N" The symbol is a debugging symbol.
"n" The symbol is in a non-data, non-code, non-debug read-only
section.
"p" The symbol is in a stack unwind section.
"R"
"r" The symbol is in a read only data section.
"S"
"s" The symbol is in an uninitialized or zero-initialized data
section for small objects.
"T"
"t" The symbol is in the text (code) section.
"U" The symbol is undefined.
"u" The symbol is a unique global symbol. This is a GNU extension
to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings. For such a symbol
the dynamic linker will make sure that in the entire process
there is just one symbol with this name and type in use.
"V"
"v" The symbol is a weak object. When a weak defined symbol is
linked with a normal defined symbol, the normal defined symbol
is used with no error. When a weak undefined symbol is linked
and the symbol is not defined, the value of the weak symbol
becomes zero with no error. On some systems, uppercase
indicates that a default value has been specified.
"W"
"w" The symbol is a weak symbol that has not been specifically
tagged as a weak object symbol. When a weak defined symbol is
linked with a normal defined symbol, the normal defined symbol
is used with no error. When a weak undefined symbol is linked
and the symbol is not defined, the value of the symbol is
determined in a system-specific manner without error. On some
systems, uppercase indicates that a default value has been
specified.
"-" The symbol is a stabs symbol in an a.out object file. In this
case, the next values printed are the stabs other field, the
stabs desc field, and the stab type. Stabs symbols are used to
hold debugging information.
"?" The symbol type is unknown, or object file format specific.
• The symbol name. If a symbol has version information associated
with it, then the version information is displayed as well. If the
versioned symbol is undefined or hidden from linker, the version
string is displayed as a suffix to the symbol name, preceded by an @
character. For example foo@VER_1. If the version is the default
version to be used when resolving unversioned references to the
symbol, then it is displayed as a suffix preceded by two @
characters. For example foo@@VER_2.
OPTIONS
The long and short forms of options, shown here as alternatives, are
equivalent.
-A
-o
--print-file-name
Precede each symbol by the name of the input file (or archive
member) in which it was found, rather than identifying the input
file once only, before all of its symbols.
-a
--debug-syms
Display all symbols, even debugger-only symbols; normally these are
not listed.
-B The same as --format=bsd (for compatibility with the MIPS nm).
-C
--demangle[=style]
Decode (demangle) low-level symbol names into user-level names.
Besides removing any initial underscore prepended by the system,
this makes C++ function names readable. Different compilers have
different mangling styles. The optional demangling style argument
can be used to choose an appropriate demangling style for your
compiler.
--no-demangle
Do not demangle low-level symbol names. This is the default.
--recurse-limit
--no-recurse-limit
--recursion-limit
--no-recursion-limit
Enables or disables a limit on the amount of recursion performed
whilst demangling strings. Since the name mangling formats allow
for an infinite level of recursion it is possible to create strings
whose decoding will exhaust the amount of stack space available on
the host machine, triggering a memory fault. The limit tries to
prevent this from happening by restricting recursion to 2048 levels
of nesting.
The default is for this limit to be enabled, but disabling it may be
necessary in order to demangle truly complicated names. Note
however that if the recursion limit is disabled then stack
exhaustion is possible and any bug reports about such an event will
be rejected.
-D
--dynamic
Display the dynamic symbols rather than the normal symbols. This is
only meaningful for dynamic objects, such as certain types of shared
libraries.
-f format
--format=format
Use the output format format, which can be "bsd", "sysv", "posix" or
"just-symbols". The default is "bsd". Only the first character of
format is significant; it can be either upper or lower case.
-g
--extern-only
Display only external symbols.
-h
--help
Show a summary of the options to nm and exit.
--ifunc-chars=CHARS
When display GNU indirect function symbols nm will default to using
the "i" character for both local indirect functions and global
indirect functions. The --ifunc-chars option allows the user to
specify a string containing one or two characters. The first
character will be used for global indirect function symbols and the
second character, if present, will be used for local indirect
function symbols.
j The same as --format=just-symbols.
-l
--line-numbers
For each symbol, use debugging information to try to find a filename
and line number. For a defined symbol, look for the line number of
the address of the symbol. For an undefined symbol, look for the
line number of a relocation entry which refers to the symbol. If
line number information can be found, print it after the other
symbol information.
--inlines
When option -l is active, if the address belongs to a function that
was inlined, then this option causes the source information for all
enclosing scopes back to the first non-inlined function to be
printed as well. For example, if "main" inlines "callee1" which
inlines "callee2", and address is from "callee2", the source
information for "callee1" and "main" will also be printed.
-n
-v
--numeric-sort
Sort symbols numerically by their addresses, rather than
alphabetically by their names.
-p
--no-sort
Do not bother to sort the symbols in any order; print them in the
order encountered.
-P
--portability
Use the POSIX.2 standard output format instead of the default
format. Equivalent to -f posix.
-r
--reverse-sort
Reverse the order of the sort (whether numeric or alphabetic); let
the last come first.
-S
--print-size
Print both value and size of defined symbols for the "bsd" output
style. This option has no effect for object formats that do not
record symbol sizes, unless --size-sort is also used in which case a
calculated size is displayed.
-s
--print-armap
When listing symbols from archive members, include the index: a
mapping (stored in the archive by ar or ranlib) of which modules
contain definitions for which names.
-t radix
--radix=radix
Use radix as the radix for printing the symbol values. It must be d
for decimal, o for octal, or x for hexadecimal.
-u
--undefined-only
Display only undefined symbols (those external to each object file).
By default both defined and undefined symbols are displayed.
-U
--defined-only
Display only defined symbols for each object file. By default both
defined and undefined symbols are displayed.
-V
--version
Show the version number of nm and exit.
-X This option is ignored for compatibility with the AIX version of nm.
It takes one parameter which must be the string 32_64. The default
mode of AIX nm corresponds to -X 32, which is not supported by GNU
nm.
--plugin name
Load the plugin called name to add support for extra target types.
This option is only available if the toolchain has been built with
plugin support enabled.
If --plugin is not provided, but plugin support has been enabled
then nm iterates over the files in ${libdir}/bfd-plugins in
alphabetic order and the first plugin that claims the object in
question is used.
Please note that this plugin search directory is not the one used by
ld's -plugin option. In order to make nm use the linker plugin it
must be copied into the ${libdir}/bfd-plugins directory. For GCC
based compilations the linker plugin is called
liblto_plugin.so.0.0.0. For Clang based compilations it is called
LLVMgold.so. The GCC plugin is always backwards compatible with
earlier versions, so it is sufficient to just copy the newest one.
--size-sort
Sort symbols by size. For ELF objects symbol sizes are read from
the ELF, for other object types the symbol sizes are computed as the
difference between the value of the symbol and the value of the
symbol with the next higher value. If the "bsd" output format is
used the size of the symbol is printed, rather than the value, and
-S must be used in order both size and value to be printed.
Note - this option does not work if --undefined-only has been
enabled as undefined symbols have no size.
--special-syms
Display symbols which have a target-specific special meaning. These
symbols are usually used by the target for some special processing
and are not normally helpful when included in the normal symbol
lists. For example for ARM targets this option would skip the
mapping symbols used to mark transitions between ARM code, THUMB
code and data.
--synthetic
Include synthetic symbols in the output. These are special symbols
created by the linker for various purposes. They are not shown by
default since they are not part of the binary's original source
code.
--unicode=[default|invalid|locale|escape|hex|highlight]
Controls the display of UTF-8 encoded multibyte characters in
strings. The default (--unicode=default) is to give them no special
treatment. The --unicode=locale option displays the sequence in the
current locale, which may or may not support them. The options
--unicode=hex and --unicode=invalid display them as hex byte
sequences enclosed by either angle brackets or curly braces.
The --unicode=escape option displays them as escape sequences
(\uxxxx) and the --unicode=highlight option displays them as escape
sequences highlighted in red (if supported by the output device).
The colouring is intended to draw attention to the presence of
unicode sequences where they might not be expected.
-W
--no-weak
Do not display weak symbols.
--with-symbol-versions
--without-symbol-versions
Enables or disables the display of symbol version information. The
version string is displayed as a suffix to the symbol name, preceded
by an @ character. For example foo@VER_1. If the version is the
default version to be used when resolving unversioned references to
the symbol then it is displayed as a suffix preceded by two @
characters. For example foo@@VER_2. By default, symbol version
information is displayed.
--target=bfdname
Specify an object code format other than your system's default
format.
@file
Read command-line options from file. The options read are inserted
in place of the original @file option. If file does not exist, or
cannot be read, then the option will be treated literally, and not
removed.
Options in file are separated by whitespace. A whitespace character
may be included in an option by surrounding the entire option in
either single or double quotes. Any character (including a
backslash) may be included by prefixing the character to be included
with a backslash. The file may itself contain additional @file
options; any such options will be processed recursively.
SEE ALSO
ar(1), objdump(1), ranlib(1), and the Info entries for binutils.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1991-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
Free Documentation License".
binutils-2.44 2025-03-03 NM(1)
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