libabigail/doc/manuals/abidw.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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======
abidw
======
abidw reads a shared library in `ELF`_ format and emits an XML
representation of its ABI to standard output. The emitted
representation includes all the globally defined functions and
variables, along with a complete representation of their types. It
also includes a representation of the globally defined ELF symbols of
the file. The input shared library must contain associated debug
information in `DWARF`_ format.
Invocation
==========
::
abidw [options] [<path-to-elf-file>]
Options
=======
* --help
Display a short help about the command and exit.
* --debug-info-dir <*dir-path*>
In cases where the debug info for *path-to-elf-file* is in a
separate file that is located in a non-standard place, this tells
``abidw`` where to look for that debug info file.
Note that *dir-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 that this option is not mandatory for split debug information
installed by your system's package manager because then
``abidw`` knows where to find it.
* --out-file <*file-path*>
This option instructs ``abidw`` to emit the XML representation of
*path-to-elf-file* into the file *file-path*, rather than emitting
it to its standard output.
* --check-alternate-debug-info <*elf-path*>
If the debug info for the file *elf-path* contains a reference to
an `alternate debug info <alt-di-label>`_ file, ``abidw`` checks
that it can find that alternate debug info file. In that case, it
emits a meaningful success message mentioning the full path to the
alternate debug info file found. Otherwise, it emits an error
code.
* --check-alternate-debug-info-base-name <*elf-path*>
Like ``--check-alternate-debug-info``, but in the success message,
only mention the base name of the debug info file; not its full path.
Notes
=====
.. _alt-di-label:
Alternate debug info files
--------------------------
As of the version 4 of the DWARF specification, `Alternate debug
information <http://www.dwarfstd.org/ShowIssue.php?issue=120604.1>`_
is a `GNU`_ extension to the DWARF specification. It has however been
proposed for inclusion into the upcoming version 5 of the DWARF
standard. You can read more about the GNU extensions to the DWARF
standard `here
<https://fedorahosted.org/elfutils/wiki/DwarfExtensions>`_.
.. _ELF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format
.. _DWARF: http://www.dwarfstd.org
.. _GNU: http://www.gnu.org