binutils/c++filt.1

   1 .\" Copyright (c) 1991 Free Software Foundation
   2 .\" See section COPYING for conditions for redistribution
   3 .TH c++filt 1 "June 1993" "cygnus support" "GNU Development Tools"
   4 .de BP
   5 .sp
   6 .ti \-.2i
   7 \(**
   8 ..
   9
  10 .SH NAME
  11 c++filt\(em\&demangles C++ symbols
  12
  13 .SH SYNOPSIS
  14 .B c++filt
  15 [
  16 .B -_
  17 ]
  18
  19 .SH DESCRIPTION
  20 The C++ language provides function overloading, which means that you can
  21 write many functions with the same name (providing each takes parameters
  22 of different types).  All C++ function names are encoded into a
  23 low-level assembly label (in some circles this is described as
  24 @dfn{mangling}). The
  25 .B c++filt
  26 program does the inverse mapping: it decodes (\fIdemangles\fR)
  27 low-level names into user-level names so that the linker can keep
  28 these overloaded functions from clashing.
  29
  30 Every alphanumeric word (consisting of letters, digits, underscores,
  31 dollars, or periods) seen in the input is a potential label.  If the
  32 label decodes into a C++ name, the C++ name replaces the low-level
  33 name in the output.
  34
  35 A typical use of
  36 .B c++filt
  37 is to pipe the output of
  38 .B nm
  39 through it, using
  40 .B c++filt
  41 as a filter:
  42 .br
  43 .RS
  44 .B nm \fIobjfile\fB | c++filt
  45 .RE
  46
  47 You can also use
  48 .B c++filt
  49 to decipher individual symbols by specifying these symbols on the
  50 command line.
  51
  52 All results are printed on the standard output.
  53
  54 Note that on some systems, both the C and C++ compilers put an
  55 underscore in front of every name.  (I.e. the C name
  56 .B foo
  57 gets the low-level name
  58 .BR _foo .)
  59 To remove the leading underscore, specify the option
  60 .B -_
  61 on the command line.
  62
  63 .SH "SEE ALSO"
  64 .RB "`\|" binutils "\|'"
  65 entry in
  66 .B
  67 info\c
  68 \&;
  69 .I
  70 The GNU Binary Utilities\c
  71 \&, Roland H. Pesch (June 1993).
  72
  73 .SH COPYING
  74 Copyright (c) 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  75 .PP
  76 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
  77 this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
  78 are preserved on all copies.
  79 .PP
  80 Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
  81 manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
  82 entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
  83 permission notice identical to this one.
  84 .PP
  85 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
  86 manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
  87 versions, except that this permission notice may be included in
  88 translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in
  89 the original English.