strip (Unix)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Strip" Unix – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

strip is a shell command for removing information from binary executable programs and object files that is not required for execution – typically including debugging data, symbol tables, relocation information, and other metadata. The resulting file generally has a smaller size and potentially has increased performance. The resulting file is known as a stripped binary.^[1]

Using strip can enhance the security of an executable by making it more difficult to reverse-engineer. The absence of symbol and debugging information complicates the program analysis of the binary.

The effect of strip can also be achieved via a compiler or linker to perform the same process.^[2] For example, in the GNU C compiler (gcc), this is done via the -s option.^[2]

The command is available in Unix, Plan 9, and Unix-like systems. The GNU Project includes an implementation in the GNU Binutils package. The command has been implemented in to other operating systems including Windows.

• Dead code elimination – Compiler optimization to remove code which does not affect the program resultsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Debug symbol – special kind of symbol that attaches additional information to the symbol table of an object file, such as a shared library or an executable, allowing a symbolic debugger to gain access to information from the source code of the binaryPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Executable compression – Means of compressing an executable file
• List of POSIX commands
• strings (Unix) – Shell command for extracting printable text from a binary file
• Symbol table – Data structure used by a language translator such as a compiler or interpreter

• "strip", The Single UNIX Specification, Version 2, The Open Group, 1997

The Wikibook Guide to Unix has a page on the topic of: Commands

• strip – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
• strip(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1