NAME

strip − strip symbol and line number information from a common object file

SYNOPSIS

strip [−l] [−x] [−b] [−r] [−V] filename ... 

DESCRIPTION

The strip command renders debugging information in executables undecipherable by the debugger and by disassembler tools.  This helps third-party software to be better protected from unfriendly users.  Note that the Titan 1500/3000 strip command does not completely remove this information, as do strip commands on most other systems.  As a result, using strip does not result in a very large reduction of disk usage and is of little value to users who do not want protection against disassembly. 

Stardent strongly discourages users from using the strip command.  One of the important tools provided by Stardent is a postloading capability.  Among other things, the profiler, the −opct loader option, and the adapt(1) utility (which transforms Stardent 1500 executables so that they will run on Stardent 3000) are all postloader-based programs. Postloading require much of the same debugging information that is removed by the standard strip command, so that a program that has been stripped in the normal sense cannot be postloaded.  The Titan 1500/3000 strip command retains enough information to allow current postloaders to function on the resulting executable.  However, Stardent cannot guarantee that future postloaders will be able to function on executables that have been stripped by the Titan 1500/3000 strip command; in particular, it is very likely that postloaders that convert Stardent 3000 a.out files to be executable on future Stardent machines will not work on stripped executables.  Consequently, Stardent strongly discourages users from using the strip command. 

strip accepts the options listed above to maintain compatability with existing systems.  However, excepting −V, which prints version information, strip performs the same operations regardless of any given options.  strip operates only on executables; when called on archives or object files, it silently does nothing. 

FILES

TMPDIR/strtemporary files TMPDIR is usually /usr/tmp but can be redefined by setting the TMPDIR environment variable (see tempnam() in tmpnam(3S)).

SEE ALSO

a.out(4), ar(1), ar(4) as(1), ld(1), tmpnam(3S)

DIAGNOSTICS

strip: name: cannot open−if name cannot be read
strip: name: bad magic−if name is not an appropriate file

September 02, 1992