The GNU Binary Utilities, or binutils, is a collection of programming tools maintained by the GNU Project for working with executable code including assembly, linking and many other development operations.
The tools are originally from Cygnus Solutions.
The tools are typically used along with other GNU tools such as GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger.
Tools[edit]The tools include:
as assembler popularly known as GAS (GNU Assembler) ld linker gprof profiler addr2line convert address to file and line ar create, modify, and extract from archives c++filt demangling filter for C++ symbols dlltool creation of Windows dynamic-link libraries gold alternative linker for ELF files nlmconv object file conversion to a NetWare Loadable Module nm list symbols exported by object files objcopy copy object files, possibly making changes objdump dump information about object files ranlib generate indices for archives (for compatibility; same as ar -s) readelf display contents of ELF files size list section sizes and total size of binary files strings list printable strings strip remove symbols from object files windmc generates Windows message resources windres compiler for Windows resource files elfutils[edit]Ulrich Drepper wrote elfutils, to partially replace GNU Binutils, purely for Linux and with support only for ELF and DWARF. It distributes three libraries with it for programmatic access.[2][3]
See also[edit] Free and open-source software portal Binary File Descriptor library – GNU support for multiple executable file formats GNU Core Utilities – Collection of standard, Unix-based utilities from GNU GNU Debugger – Source-level debugger ldd (Unix) List of Unix commands LLVM – Compiler backend for multiple programming languages strace – Diagnostic, debugging and instructional userspace utility for Linux References[edit] ^ Nick Clifton (27 July 2025). "GNU Binutils release 2.45 is now ailable". Retrieved 27 July 2025. ^ elfutils home ^ elfutils at Drepper's home External links[edit] Official website The ELF Tool Chain Project : the BSD license similar project (mirror) vteGNU ProjectHistory GNU Manifesto Free Software Foundation Europe India Latin America History of free software Licenses GNU General Public License linking exception font exception GNU Lesser General Public License GNU Affero General Public License GNU Free Documentation License GNAT Modified General Public License Software GNU (variants) Hurd Linux-libre glibc Bash coreutils findutils Build system GCC binutils GDB GRUB GNUstep GIMP Jami GNU Emacs GNU TeXmacs GNU Octe GNU Taler GNU R GSL GMP GNU Electric GNU Archimedes GNUnet GNU Privacy Guard Gnuzilla (IceCat) GNU Health GNUmed GNU LilyPond GNU Go GNU Chess Gnash Guix more... Contributors Benjamin Mako Hill Bradley M. Kuhn Brian Fox Federico Heinz John Sullivan Nagarjuna G. Richard M. Stallman Other topics GNU/Linux naming controversy Revolution OS Free Software Foundation anti-Windows campaigns Defective by Design