STRIP(1)

📦
version 2.47 · 15 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 STRIP(1) — GNU Development Tools 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because we're about to talk about strip, the GNU Development Tools girly who is literally the queen of letting go 👑✨ This is STRIP(1), and she is serving main-character energy in your terminal, no cap.

✨ NAME ✨

strip — discard symbols and other data from object files 🗑️💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

strip [-F bfdname |--target=bfdname]
      [-I bfdname |--input-target=bfdname]
      [-O bfdname |--output-target=bfdname]
      [-s|--strip-all]
      [-S|-g|-d|--strip-debug]
      [--strip-dwo]
      [-K symbolname|--keep-symbol=symbolname]
      [-M|--merge-notes][--no-merge-notes]
      [-N symbolname |--strip-symbol=symbolname]
      [-w|--wildcard]
      [-x|--discard-all] [-X |--discard-locals]
      [-R sectionname |--remove-section=sectionname]
      [--keep-section=sectionpattern]
      [--remove-relocations=sectionpattern]
      [--strip-section-headers]
      [-o file] [-p|--preserve-dates]
      [-D|--enable-deterministic-archives]
      [-U|--disable-deterministic-archives]
      [--keep-section-symbols]
      [--keep-file-symbols]
      [--only-keep-debug]
      [--plugin name]
      [-v |--verbose] [-V|--version]
      [--help] [--info]
      objfile...

like, look at all those flags. she has options. she contains multitudes. 🦋

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so here's the tea ☕ — GNU strip discards all symbols from object files, and those object files are the objfile ones you hand her. she's not subtle about it either, she just takes them out. bye bestie 👋

and like, the list of object files you give her? it may include archives. but here's the thing — at least one object file must be given. you can't just show up empty-handed and expect her to work, that's not how this relationship goes 😭

big caveat, listen up: strip modifies the files named in its argument, rather than writing modified copies under different names. like, she edits in place, she does not make you a cute little backup copy with a new name. the file you named? that's the file that gets changed. periodt. 💀

so that's the vibe check on strip so far — she deletes symbols, she needs at least one objfile, and she edits files directly like the confident icon she is. more coming, don't go anywhere 🎀

✨ OPTIONS ✨

okay bestie, here's the whole toolbox, every single flag, no skips 💅

  • -F bfdname, --target=bfdname — treat the original objfile as a file with the object code format bfdname, and rewrite it in that same format. ✨
  • --help — show a lil summary of the options strip has and then dip out. 🫶
  • --info — display a list showing all architectures and object formats available.
  • -I bfdname, --input-target=bfdname — treat the original objfile as a file with the object code format bfdname.
  • -O bfdname, --output-target=bfdname — replace objfile with a file in the output format bfdname.
  • -R sectionname, --remove-section=sectionname — remove any section named sectionname from the output file, on top of whatever sections would've gotten removed anyway. You can give this option more than once, she's flexible 💖. ngl though, using this inappropriately may make the output file unusable, so like… be careful? The wildcard character * may be given at the end of sectionname — if so, then any section starting with sectionname gets removed.

If the first character of sectionpattern is the exclamation point (!) then matching sections will not be removed, even if an earlier use of --remove-section on the same command line would otherwise remove it. For example:

          --remove-section=.text.* --remove-section=!.text.foo

will remove all sections matching the pattern .text.*, but will not remove the section .text.foo. the way that ! just flips the whole vibe 🔥

  • --keep-section=sectionpattern — when removing sections from the output file, keep the ones that match sectionpattern.
  • --remove-relocations=sectionpattern — remove relocations from the output file for any section matching sectionpattern. This option may be given more than once. Note that using this option inappropriately may make the output file unusable (again — bestie, respect the warning 😭). Wildcard characters are accepted in sectionpattern. For example:
          --remove-relocations=.text.*

will remove the relocations for all sections matching the pattern .text.*.

If the first character of sectionpattern is the exclamation point (!) then matching sections will not have their relocations removed, even if an earlier use of --remove-relocations on the same command line would otherwise cause the relocations to be removed. For example:

          --remove-relocations=.text.* --remove-relocations=!.text.foo

will remove all relocations for sections matching the pattern .text.*, but will not remove relocations for the section .text.foo.

  • --strip-section-headers — strip section headers. This one is specific to ELF files. Implies --strip-all and --merge-notes.
  • -s, --strip-all — remove all symbols. all of 'em. gone. 💀
  • -g, -S, -d, --strip-debug — remove debugging symbols only.
  • --strip-dwo — remove the contents of all DWARF .dwo sections, leaving the remaining debugging sections and all symbols intact. See the description of this option in the objcopy section for more info. 🦋
  • --strip-unneeded — remove all symbols that aren't needed for relocation processing, plus debugging symbols and sections stripped by --strip-debug.
  • -K symbolname, --keep-symbol=symbolname — when stripping symbols, keep symbol symbolname even if it would normally get stripped. This option may be given more than once. protective queen energy, we love to see it 👑
  • -M, --merge-notes, --no-merge-notes — for ELF files, attempt (or do not attempt) to reduce the size of any SHT_NOTE type sections by removing duplicate notes. The default is to attempt this reduction unless stripping debug or DWO information.
  • -N symbolname, --strip-symbol=symbolname — remove symbol symbolname from the source file. This option may be given more than once, and may be combined with strip options other than -K.
  • -o file — put the stripped output in file, rather than replacing the existing file. When this argument is used, you may only specify one objfile argument.
  • -p, --preserve-dates — preserve the access and modification dates of the file. 🎀
  • -D, --enable-deterministic-archives — operate in deterministic mode. When copying archive members and writing the archive index, use zero for UIDs, GIDs, timestamps, and use consistent file modes for all files.

If binutils was configured with --enable-deterministic-archives, then this mode is on by default. It can be disabled with the -U option, below.

  • -U, --disable-deterministic-archives — do not operate in deterministic mode. This is the inverse of the -D option above: when copying archive members and writing the archive index, use their actual UID, GID, timestamp, and file mode values.

This is the default unless binutils was configured with --enable-deterministic-archives.

  • -w, --wildcard — permit regular expressions in *symbolname*s used in other command line options. The question mark (?), asterisk (*), backslash (\) and square brackets ([]) operators can be used anywhere in the symbol name. If the first character of the symbol name is the exclamation point (!) then the sense of the switch is reversed for that symbol. For example:
          -w -K !foo -K fo*

would cause strip to only keep symbols that start with the letters "fo", but to discard the symbol "foo". regex girlies rise up 🌈

  • -x, --discard-all — remove non-global symbols.
  • -X, --discard-locals — remove compiler-generated local symbols. (These usually start with L or ..)
  • --keep-section-symbols — when stripping a file, maybe with --strip-debug or --strip-unneeded, retain any symbols specifying section names, which would otherwise get stripped.
  • --keep-file-symbols — when stripping a file, maybe with --strip-debug or --strip-unneeded, retain any symbols specifying source file names, which would otherwise get stripped.
  • --only-keep-debug — strip a file, emptying the contents of any sections that would not be stripped by --strip-debug, and leaving the debugging sections intact. In ELF files, this preserves all the note sections in the output as well.

Note — the section headers of the stripped sections are preserved, including their sizes, but the contents of the section are discarded. The section headers are preserved so that other tools can match up the debuginfo file with the real executable, even if that executable has been relocated to a different address space.

The intention is that this option will be used together with --add-gnu-debuglink to create a two part executable. One: a stripped binary which will occupy less space in RAM and in a distribution. Two: a debugging information file which is only needed if debugging abilities are required. The suggested procedure to create these files is as follows:

  1. Link the executable as normal. Assuming that it is called "foo" then...
  2. Run "objcopy --only-keep-debug foo foo.dbg" to create a file containing the debugging info.
  3. Run "strip --strip-debug foo" to create a stripped executable.
  4. Run "objcopy --add-gnu-debuglink=foo.dbg foo" to add a link to the debugging info into the stripped executable.

Note — the choice of ".dbg" as an extension for the debug info file is arbitrary. Also the "--only-keep-debug" step is optional. You could instead do this:

  1. Link the executable as normal.
  2. Copy "foo" to "foo.full".
  3. Run "strip --strip-debug foo".
  4. Run "objcopy --add-gnu-debuglink=foo.full foo".

i.e., the file pointed to by the --add-gnu-debuglink can be the full executable. It does not have to be a file created by the --only-keep-debug switch.

Note — this switch is only intended for use on fully linked files. It does not make sense to use it on object files where the debugging information may be incomplete. Besides, the gnu_debuglink feature currently only supports the presence of one filename containing debugging information, not multiple filenames on a one-per-object-file basis. 🧚

  • --plugin name — load the plugin called name to add support for extra target types. This option is only available if the toolchain has been built with plugin support enabled.

If --plugin is not provided, but plugin support has been enabled, then strip iterates over the files in ${libdir}/bfd-plugins in alphabetic order and the first plugin that claims the object in question is used.

Please note that this plugin search directory is not the one used by ld's -plugin option. In order to make strip use the linker plugin, it must be copied into the ${libdir}/bfd-plugins directory. For GCC based compilations the linker plugin is called liblto_plugin.so.0.0.0. For Clang based compilations it is called LLVMgold.so. The GCC plugin is always backwards compatible with earlier versions, so it is sufficient to just copy the newest one.

  • -V, --version — show the version number for strip. slay.
  • -v, --verbose — verbose output: list all object files modified. In the case of archives, strip -v lists all members of the archive. main character behavior tbh 💅
  • @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. 😭 nested @files, it's giving inception

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

the Info entries for binutils.

Copyright (c) 1991-2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

and that's the whole page bestie, we ate and left no crumbs 🍓💖 this one's from binutils-2.47, dated 2026-09-05, and yeah STRIP(1) is literally iconic, periodt ✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from