libabigail/doc/manuals/abilint.rst
Dodji Seketeli 2f296a7846 Initial documentation for libabigail
* doc/manuals/Makefile: New file, generated by sphinx-quickstart.
	* doc/manuals/abidiff.rst: New manual for abidiff.
	* doc/manuals/abidw.rst: New manual for abidw.
	* doc/manuals/abilint.rst: New manual for abilint.
	* doc/manuals/conf.py: New configuration file generated by sphinx-quickstart.
	* doc/manuals/index.rst: The root of the this documentation.
	* doc/manuals/libabigail-overview.rst: The overview of libabigail.
	* doc/manuals/tools.rst: The root of the tools manuals.

Signed-off-by: Dodji Seketeli <dodji@redhat.com>
2014-09-26 17:06:12 +02:00

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=======
abilint
=======
abilint parses the native XML representation of an ABI as emitted by
:doc:`abidw`. Once it has parsed the XML representation of the ABI,
``abilint`` builds and in-memory model from it. It then tries to save
it back to an XML form, to standard output. If that read-write
operation succeeds chances are the input XML ABI representation is
meaningful.
Note that the main intent of this tool to help debugging issues in the
underlying Libabigail library.
Note also that ``abilint`` can also read an `ELF`_ input file, build the
in-memory model for its ABI, and serialize that model back into XML to
standard output. In that case, the `ELF`_ input file must be
accompanied with its debug information in the `DWARF`_ format.
Invocation
==========
::
abilint [options] [<abi-file1>]
Options
=======
* --help
Display a short help message and exits.
* --debug-info-dir <*path*>
When reading an `ELF`_ input file which debug information is split
out into a separate file, this options tells ``abilint`` where to
find that separate debug information file.
Note that *path* must point to the root directory under which the
debug information is arranged in a tree-like manner. Under Red
Hat based systems, that directory is usually
``<root>/usr/lib/debug``.
Note also that this option is not mandatory for split debug
information installed by your system's package manager because
then ``abidiff`` knows where to find it.
* --diff
For XML inputs, perform a text diff between the input and the
memory model saved back to disk. This can help to spot issues in
the handling of the XML format by the underlying Libabigail library.
* --noout
Do not display anything on standard output. The return code of
the command is the only way to know if the command succeeded.
* --stdin|--
Read the input content from standard input.
* --tu
Expect the input XML to represent a single translation unit.
.. _ELF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format
.. _DWARF: http://www.dwarfstd.org