Can I strip some debug section and why we need to cross-compile readelf

Can I strip some debug section and why we need to cross-compile readelf

[loody]

Dear all:
Below are my debug section I got:
[11] .debug_line       PROGBITS        00000000 12b044 0561d7 00      0   0  1
  [12] .debug_info       PROGBITS        00000000 18121b 5214b1 00      0   0  1
  [13] .debug_abbrev     PROGBITS        00000000 6a26cc 03e940 00      0   0  1
  [14] .debug_aranges    PROGBITS        00000000 6e1010 002f30 00      0   0  8
  [15] .debug_pubnames   PROGBITS        00000000 6e3f40 00df01 00      0   0  1
  [16] .debug_str        PROGBITS        00000000 6f1e41 032caa 01  MS  0   0  1
  [17] .debug_frame      PROGBITS        00000000 724aec 02289c 00      0   0  4
  [18] .debug_loc        PROGBITS        00000000 747388 0a4e5f 00      0   0  1
  [19] .debug_ranges     PROGBITS        00000000 7ec1e7 009048 00      0   0  1

When I try to strip "debug_info" section in my program, I find all
debug sections are striped.
Does that mean it is impossible to strip any debug section, since they
have some connection?

BTW, why we need to cross-compile readelf?
In my opinion, readelf is platform independent, since it is used to
parse ELF format, which is a standard, instead of reading the content
of each section like objdump does.
If my assumption is wrong, please correct me.

appreciate your help,
miloody

Re: Can I strip some debug section and why we need to cross-compile readelf

[Alan Modra]

On Sun, Mar 08, 2009 at 09:42:29PM +0800, loody wrote:
> When I try to strip "debug_info" section in my program, I find all
> debug sections are striped.

objcopy -R .debug_info will just remove the section.

> Does that mean it is impossible to strip any debug section, since they
> have some connection?

They certainly are connected, and stripping .debug_info renders some
of the other sections useless.  You can find versions of the dwarf
standard on the web, which will show you the relationship between
sections.

> BTW, why we need to cross-compile readelf?
> In my opinion, readelf is platform independent, since it is used to
> parse ELF format, which is a standard, instead of reading the content
> of each section like objdump does.
> If my assumption is wrong, please correct me.

You might want to run readelf on the target.

-- 
Alan Modra
Australia Development Lab, IBM

Re: Can I strip some debug section and why we need to cross-compile readelf

[Alan Modra]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 02:36:20PM +1030, Alan Modra wrote:
> You might want to run readelf on the target.

Brain not in gear when I wrote that.  Please ignore.  Yes, one copy of
readelf out to be able to handle all ELF targets supported by
binutils.

-- 
Alan Modra
Australia Development Lab, IBM

Re: Can I strip some debug section and why we need to cross-compile readelf

[Mike Frysinger]

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 00:23:25 Alan Modra wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 02:36:20PM +1030, Alan Modra wrote:
> > You might want to run readelf on the target.
>
> Brain not in gear when I wrote that.  Please ignore.  Yes, one copy of
> readelf out to be able to handle all ELF targets supported by
> binutils.

but not by default ... you have to use the proper configure flags and i doubt 
he is doing that ...
-mike