dladdr(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ATTRIBUTES | STANDARDS | HISTORY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

dladdr(3)               Library Functions Manual               dladdr(3)

NAME         top

       dladdr, dladdr1 - translate address to symbolic information

LIBRARY         top

       Dynamic linking library (libdl, -ldl)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #define _GNU_SOURCE
       #include <dlfcn.h>

       int dladdr(const void *addr, Dl_info *info);
       int dladdr1(const void *addr, Dl_info *info, void **extra_info,
                   int flags);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The function dladdr() determines whether the address specified in
       addr is located in one of the shared objects loaded by the
       calling application.  If it is, then dladdr() returns information
       about the shared object and symbol that overlaps addr.  This
       information is returned in a Dl_info structure:

           typedef struct {
               const char *dli_fname;  /* Pathname of shared object that
                                          contains address */
               void       *dli_fbase;  /* Base address at which shared
                                          object is loaded */
               const char *dli_sname;  /* Name of symbol whose definition
                                          overlaps addr */
               void       *dli_saddr;  /* Exact address of symbol named
                                          in dli_sname */
           } Dl_info;

       If no symbol matching addr could be found, then dli_sname and
       dli_saddr are set to NULL.

       The function dladdr1() is like dladdr(), but returns additional
       information via the argument extra_info.  The information
       returned depends on the value specified in flags, which can have
       one of the following values:

       RTLD_DL_LINKMAP
              Obtain a pointer to the link map for the matched file.
              The extra_info argument points to a pointer to a link_map
              structure (i.e., struct link_map **), defined in <link.h>
              as:

                  struct link_map {
                      ElfW(Addr) l_addr;  /* Difference between the
                                             address in the ELF file and
                                             the address in memory */
                      char      *l_name;  /* Absolute pathname where
                                             object was found */
                      ElfW(Dyn) *l_ld;    /* Dynamic section of the
                                             shared object */
                      struct link_map *l_next, *l_prev;
                                          /* Chain of loaded objects */

                      /* Plus additional fields private to the
                         implementation */
                  };

       RTLD_DL_SYMENT
              Obtain a pointer to the ELF symbol table entry of the
              matching symbol.  The extra_info argument is a pointer to
              a symbol pointer: const ElfW(Sym) **.  The ElfW() macro
              definition turns its argument into the name of an ELF data
              type suitable for the hardware architecture.  For example,
              on a 64-bit platform, ElfW(Sym) yields the data type name
              Elf64_Sym, which is defined in <elf.h> as:

                  typedef struct  {
                      Elf64_Word    st_name;     /* Symbol name */
                      unsigned char st_info;     /* Symbol type and binding */
                      unsigned char st_other;    /* Symbol visibility */
                      Elf64_Section st_shndx;    /* Section index */
                      Elf64_Addr    st_value;    /* Symbol value */
                      Elf64_Xword   st_size;     /* Symbol size */
                  } Elf64_Sym;

              The st_name field is an index into the string table.

              The st_info field encodes the symbol's type and binding.
              The type can be extracted using the macro
              ELF64_ST_TYPE(st_info) (or ELF32_ST_TYPE() on 32-bit
              platforms), which yields one of the following values:
                  Value           Description
                  STT_NOTYPE      Symbol type is unspecified
                  STT_OBJECT      Symbol is a data object
                  STT_FUNC        Symbol is a code object
                  STT_SECTION     Symbol associated with a section
                  STT_FILE        Symbol's name is filename
                  STT_COMMON      Symbol is a common data object
                  STT_TLS         Symbol is thread-local data object
                  STT_GNU_IFUNC   Symbol is indirect code object

              The symbol binding can be extracted from the st_info field
              using the macro ELF64_ST_BIND(st_info) (or ELF32_ST_BIND()
              on 32-bit platforms), which yields one of the following
              values:
                  Value            Description
                  STB_LOCAL        Local symbol
                  STB_GLOBAL       Global symbol
                  STB_WEAK         Weak symbol
                  STB_GNU_UNIQUE   Unique symbol

              The st_other field contains the symbol's visibility, which
              can be extracted using the macro
              ELF64_ST_VISIBILITY(st_info) (or ELF32_ST_VISIBILITY() on
              32-bit platforms), which yields one of the following
              values:
                  Value           Description
                  STV_DEFAULT     Default symbol visibility rules
                  STV_INTERNAL    Processor-specific hidden class
                  STV_HIDDEN      Symbol unavailable in other modules
                  STV_PROTECTED   Not preemptible, not exported

RETURN VALUE         top

       On success, these functions return a nonzero value.  If the
       address specified in addr could be matched to a shared object,
       but not to a symbol in the shared object, then the
       info->dli_sname and info->dli_saddr fields are set to NULL.

       If the address specified in addr could not be matched to a shared
       object, then these functions return 0.  In this case, an error
       message is not available via dlerror(3).

ATTRIBUTES         top

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       ┌─────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │ Interface                           Attribute     Value   │
       ├─────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │ dladdr(), dladdr1()                 │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └─────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘

STANDARDS         top

       GNU.

HISTORY         top

       dladdr()
              glibc 2.0.

       dladdr1()
              glibc 2.3.3.

       Solaris.

BUGS         top

       Sometimes, the function pointers you pass to dladdr() may
       surprise you.  On some architectures (notably i386 and x86-64),
       dli_fname and dli_fbase may end up pointing back at the object
       from which you called dladdr(), even if the function used as an
       argument should come from a dynamically linked library.

       The problem is that the function pointer will still be resolved
       at compile time, but merely point to the plt (Procedure Linkage
       Table) section of the original object (which dispatches the call
       after asking the dynamic linker to resolve the symbol).  To work
       around this, you can try to compile the code to be position-
       independent: then, the compiler cannot prepare the pointer at
       compile time any more and gcc(1) will generate code that just
       loads the final symbol address from the got (Global Offset Table)
       at run time before passing it to dladdr().

SEE ALSO         top

       dl_iterate_phdr(3), dlinfo(3), dlopen(3), dlsym(3), ld.so(8)

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-05-02                      dladdr(3)

Pages that refer to this page: dlerror(3)dlinfo(3)dl_iterate_phdr(3)dlopen(3)dlsym(3)