sprint_symbol(9)

💅 sprint_symbol — straight outta the Kernel API Manual, section 9 🧚

okay bestie, so this one is a kernel symbol lookup that writes pretty text into a buffer. it's giving "debugging sidekick" energy and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 💖

✨ NAME ✨

sprint_symbol — the function that looks up a kernel symbol and hands it back to you in a text buffer 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

int sprint_symbol (char *buffer , unsigned long address );

✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

• buffer — the buffer where the stuff gets stored 🫶
• address — the address you're looking up 🔍

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically, this function looks up a kernel symbol using address, and if it can, it writes that symbol's name, offset, size and module name into buffer. no cap, all of it goes in there 💅

and if no symbol was found? it just saves its address as is. lowkey graceful, honestly 😌

this function returns the number of bytes stored in buffer. that's the vibe check — the return value is your byte count ✨

heads up bestie: no symbol found is not an error situation, it just means the address gets saved as-is. that's literally the documented behaviour, don't @ me 💀

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• Kernel file ./kernel/kallsyms.c
• sprint_symbol_build_id(9)
• sprint_symbol_no_offset(9)
• sprint_backtrace(9)
• sprint_backtrace_build_id(9)

and that's the whole page, periodt 🦋 this little beauty lives in ./kernel, comes from the October 2026 edition of the docs, and it's filed right under sprint_symbol(9) — go read the SEE ALSOs, iykyk 👑🌸