The GNU nm tool offers an alternative to readelf when we need to output the symbols within an object file during our analysis. The difference is that nm offers additional display formatting and various options for the type of symbols you want to display from the binary. The nm tool also has some shortcomings that we'll examine in this recipe compared to readelf. As you think about where this tool fits into the methodology we covered in the previous chapter, as an alternative to readelf and its symbol listing options, it really just depends on which output we prefer and whether or not we're analyzing a stripped binary. That last statement will become clearer as we work through this recipe. As I've already mentioned, there are some shortcomings when using only nm.
We will highlight the use of nm as an alternative to readelf when listing the symbols that are...
