STRIP(1)

📦
version 2.47 · 6 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ STRIP(1) — the GNU Development Tools era ✨

okay so bestie. this is strip, section 1 of the manual, and it lives under the GNU Development Tools umbrella. she's not flashy, she's not loud, she just deletes stuff from your binaries and leaves. iconic behavior honestly 🎀

💖 NAME 💖

strip — discard symbols and other data from object files

like. she strips. the symbols. and other data. from object files. the name really said "I contain multitudes but also I'm extremely literal" 💅

🦋 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...

look at her. so many little flags. she's giving "I have a lot of opinions and every single one of them is a command-line option." 🧚

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so here's the tea, fr fr. GNU strip discards all symbols from the object files you hand her — those are your objfiles, bestie, and yes you have to actually give her some.

and the list of object files? it may include archives. so like, you can absolutely point her at a .a file and she will not flinch. she's unfazed. main character energy 😌

⚠️ at least one object file must be given. she is not going to guess. she is not going to read your mind. give her a file or she gives you nothing. periodt.

also, super important and lowkey the whole vibe of this tool:

strip modifies the files named in its argument, rather than writing modified copies under different names.

so. yeah. she edits in place. there is no "strip.bak". there is no little backup copy chilling in a corner being cute. the file you named is the file that gets changed. if you wanted a spare, you should've made one yourself, bestie, because she is not out here doing it for you. 😭

that's the whole description. no cap. go make a backup first, genuinely, I'm not even being dramatic rn 💀

✨ OPTIONS ✨

Okay bestie, here's the whole menu of flags. Order matters, vibes matter, and yes you will need to read all of them. 💅

  • -F bfdname**, **--target=*bfdname* — Treat the original objfile as a file with the object code format bfdname, and rewrite it in that same format. Same format in, same format out. 🎀
  • --help — Show a summary of the options that strip takes, then dip out (exit). Basically the "just tell me what I can do" button.
  • --info — Display a list showing all architectures and object formats available. Like a little catalog of everything your strip can handle. 🌈
  • -I bfdname**, **--input-target=*bfdname* — Treat the original objfile as a file with the object code format bfdname. That's the input side of the family, k?
  • -O bfdname**, **--output-target=*bfdname* — Replace objfile with a file in the output format bfdname. So you're saying: read it however, but write it out as this. 🔄
  • -R sectionname**, **--remove-section=*sectionname* — Remove any section named sectionname from the output file, in addition to whatever sections would otherwise be removed. You can pass this one more than once — stack 'em, queen.
Heads up fr: using this option inappropriately may make the output file unusable. 💀 No cap, that's a real warning.

The wildcard character * may be given at the end of sectionname. If so, then any section starting with sectionname will be 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 ! is the "no babe, not this one" flag. 🙈

  • --keep-section=sectionpattern` — When removing sections from the output file, keep sections that match sectionpattern. It's the protect-at-all-costs list. 🫶
  • --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. 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 relocation 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. Again: ! = "not you, bestie". ✋

  • --strip-section-headers — Strip section headers. This option is specific to ELF files. It implies --strip-all and --merge-notes. So it's the package deal — one flag, three consequences. 🔥
  • -s, --strip-all — Remove all symbols. Every last one. Gone. Bye. 👋
  • -g, -S, -d, --strip-debug — Remove debugging symbols only. Just the debug stuff, nothing extra.
  • --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 information. (Go peek at objcopy if you want the full lore. 📖)
  • --strip-unneeded — Remove all symbols that are not needed for relocation processing, in addition to debugging symbols and sections stripped by --strip-debug. The overachiever option.
  • -K symbolname**, **--keep-symbol=*symbolname* — When stripping symbols, keep symbol symbolname even if it would normally be stripped. This option may be given more than once. VIP list, basically. 👑
  • -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. Note the plot twist: the default changes depending on what else you asked for. 😭
  • -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. So it plays nice with everything except -K, which is its sworn enemy I guess. 💀
  • -o file` — Put the stripped output in file, rather than replacing the existing file. When this argument is used, only one objfile argument may be specified. One input, one output, that's the rule. 🎀
  • -p, --preserve-dates — Preserve the access and modification dates of the file. Timestamps stay untouched, iconic behaviour. ⭐
  • -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. (Yes, the default depends on how your binutils was built. Read both, bestie.) 🙈

  • -w, --wildcard — Permit regular expressions in symbolnames 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. Sneaky. Love that for us. ✨

  • -x, --discard-all — Remove non-global symbols.
  • -X, --discard-locals — Remove compiler-generated local symbols. (These usually start with L or ..) You can spot 'em from a mile away. 👀
  • --keep-section-symbols — When stripping a file, perhaps with --strip-debug or --strip-unneeded, retain any symbols specifying section names, which would otherwise get stripped. Keeping the name tags on, basically. 🏷️
  • --keep-file-symbols — When stripping a file, perhaps with --strip-debug or --strip-unneeded, retain any symbols specifying source file names, which would otherwise get stripped. Same energy, but for file names.
  • --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. (So it's like an empty labeled box, not a deleted box. 📦)

The intention is that this option will be used in conjunction 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 and the second 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. So don't be trying this on half-baked objects, okay? 😭

  • --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 it wasn't, this flag is giving nothing. 💀)

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. First come, first served. 🎀

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. Chef's kiss, just grab the newest. 👑

  • -V, --version — Show the version number for strip.
  • -v, --verbose — Verbose output: list all object files modified. In the case of archives, strip -v lists all members of the archive. It's the "narrate everything to me" mode. 🗣️
  • *@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. (So no file = no drama, it just passes through as-is. ✨)

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. It's files within files within files, inception style. 🌀

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

  • the Info entries for binutils. Go read those too, they're the extended universe. 📚

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!! 💖 You just read the entirety of STRIP(1) from binutils-2.47, dated 2026-09-12. Go forth and strip responsibly — no cap, your binaries are gonna be so lean. 🦋✨👑

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