- 1 year ago
Removing symbols from object file on windows
On Windows, you can remove symbols from an object file using the strip
utility. However, the strip
utility is not natively available in the Windows Command Prompt or PowerShell. Instead, you can use the GNU Binutils for Windows, which includes the strip
command.
Here are the steps to remove symbols from an object file on Windows using the GNU Binutils:
Download GNU Binutils for Windows:
- Go to the MinGW-w64 project's website: https://mingw-w64.org/doku.php/download
- Download the appropriate version of the MinGW-w64 toolchain for your system architecture (e.g., 32-bit or 64-bit).
- Install MinGW-w64 to a directory of your choice (e.g.,
C:\MinGW
).
Add MinGW-w64 to PATH:
- After installing MinGW-w64, add its
bin
directory to your system's PATH environment variable so that you can use the GNU Binutils commands from any Command Prompt or PowerShell window. - For example, if you installed MinGW-w64 to
C:\MinGW
, addC:\MinGW\bin
to your PATH.
- After installing MinGW-w64, add its
Open a Command Prompt or PowerShell:
- Open a new Command Prompt or PowerShell window to use the
strip
command.
- Open a new Command Prompt or PowerShell window to use the
Use
strip
to Remove Symbols:- Change to the directory containing the object file you want to remove symbols from.
- Run the
strip
command followed by the object file name:bashstrip my_object_file.o
The
strip
command will remove the symbols and debugging information from the object file, reducing its size.
Please note that stripping symbols from object files is typically done to reduce their size and to protect intellectual property in proprietary code. However, doing so will make debugging more challenging, as you won't have access to symbol information during the debugging process. Make sure to create backups of your object files before using the strip
command, in case you need to restore them later.