c++filt - demangle C++ and Java symbols
c++filt [-_|--strip-underscore]
[-n|--no-strip-underscore]
[-p|--no-params]
[-t|--types]
[-i|--no-verbose]
[-r|--no-recurse-limit]
[-R|--recurse-limit]
[-s format|--format=format]
[--help] [--version] [symbol...]
The C++ and Java languages provide function overloading, which means that you
can write many functions with the same name, providing that each function
takes parameters of different types. In order to be able to distinguish these
similarly named functions C++ and Java encode them into a low-level assembler
name which uniquely identifies each different version. This process is known
as mangling. The c++filt [1] program does the inverse mapping:
it decodes (demangles) low-level names into user-level names so that
they can be read.
Every alphanumeric word (consisting of letters, digits,
underscores, dollars, or periods) seen in the input is a potential mangled
name. If the name decodes into a C++ name, the C++ name replaces the
low-level name in the output, otherwise the original word is output. In this
way you can pass an entire assembler source file, containing mangled names,
through c++filt and see the same source file containing demangled
names.
You can also use c++filt to decipher individual symbols by
passing them on the command line:
c++filt <symbol>
If no symbol arguments are given, c++filt reads
symbol names from the standard input instead. All the results are printed on
the standard output. The difference between reading names from the command
line versus reading names from the standard input is that command-line
arguments are expected to be just mangled names and no checking is performed
to separate them from surrounding text. Thus for example:
c++filt -n _Z1fv
will work and demangle the name to "f()" whereas:
c++filt -n _Z1fv,
will not work. (Note the extra comma at the end of the mangled
name which makes it invalid). This command however will work:
echo _Z1fv, | c++filt -n
and will display "f(),", i.e., the demangled name
followed by a trailing comma. This behaviour is because when the names are
read from the standard input it is expected that they might be part of an
assembler source file where there might be extra, extraneous characters
trailing after a mangled name. For example:
.type _Z1fv, @function
- -_
- --strip-underscore
- On some systems, both the C and C++ compilers put an underscore in front
of every name. For example, the C name
"foo" gets the low-level name
"_foo". This option removes the initial
underscore. Whether c++filt removes the underscore by default is
target dependent.
- -n
- --no-strip-underscore
- Do not remove the initial underscore.
- -p
- --no-params
- When demangling the name of a function, do not display the types of the
function's parameters.
- -t
- --types
- Attempt to demangle types as well as function names. This is disabled by
default since mangled types are normally only used internally in the
compiler, and they can be confused with non-mangled names. For example, a
function called "a" treated as a mangled type name would be
demangled to "signed char".
- -i
- --no-verbose
- Do not include implementation details (if any) in the demangled
output.
- -r
- -R
- --recurse-limit
- --no-recurse-limit
- --recursion-limit
- --no-recursion-limit
- Enables or disables a limit on the amount of recursion performed whilst
demangling strings. Since the name mangling formats allow for an inifinite
level of recursion it is possible to create strings whose decoding will
exhaust the amount of stack space available on the host machine,
triggering a memory fault. The limit tries to prevent this from happening
by restricting recursion to 2048 levels of nesting.
The default is for this limit to be enabled, but disabling it
may be necessary in order to demangle truly complicated names. Note
however that if the recursion limit is disabled then stack exhaustion is
possible and any bug reports about such an event will be rejected.
The -r option is a synonym for the
--no-recurse-limit option. The -R option is a synonym for
the --recurse-limit option.
- -s format
- --format=format
- c++filt can decode various methods of mangling, used by different
compilers. The argument to this option selects which method it uses:
- "auto"
- Automatic selection based on executable (the default method)
- "gnu"
- the one used by the GNU C++ compiler (g++)
- "lucid"
- the one used by the Lucid compiler (lcc)
- "arm"
- the one specified by the C++ Annotated Reference Manual
- "hp"
- the one used by the HP compiler (aCC)
- "edg"
- the one used by the EDG compiler
- "gnu-v3"
- the one used by the GNU C++ compiler (g++) with the V3 ABI.
- "java"
- the one used by the GNU Java compiler (gcj)
- "gnat"
- the one used by the GNU Ada compiler (GNAT).
- --help
- Print a summary of the options to c++filt and exit.
- --version
- Print the version number of c++filt and exit.
- @file
- Read command-line options from file. The options read are inserted
in place of the original @file option. If file does not
exist, or cannot be read, then the option will be treated literally, and
not removed.
Options in file are separated by whitespace. A
whitespace character may be included in an option by surrounding the
entire option in either single or double quotes. Any character
(including a backslash) may be included by prefixing the character to be
included with a backslash. The file may itself contain additional
@file options; any such options will be processed
recursively.
- 1.
- MS-DOS does not allow "+" characters in
file names, so on MS-DOS this program is named CXXFILT.
the Info entries for binutils.
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