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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | VERSIONS | CONFORMING TO | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHONThe Linux Programming Interface


DL_ITERATE_PHDR(3)            Linux Programmer's Manual            DL_ITERATE_PHDR(3)

NAME         top

       dl_iterate_phdr - walk through list of shared objects

SYNOPSIS         top

       #define _GNU_SOURCE         /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <link.h>

       int dl_iterate_phdr(
                 int (*callback) (struct dl_phdr_info *info,
                                  size_t size, void *data),
                 void *data);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The dl_iterate_phdr() function allows an application to inquire at run time to
       find out which shared objects it has loaded.

       The dl_iterate_phdr() function walks through the list of an application's
       shared objects and calls the function callback once for each object, until
       either all shared objects have been processed or callback returns a nonzero
       value.

       Each call to callback receives three arguments: info, which is a pointer to a
       structure containing information about the shared object; size, which is the
       size of the structure pointed to by info; and data, which is a copy of
       whatever value was passed by the calling program as the second argument (also
       named data) in the call to dl_iterate_phdr().

       The info argument is a structure of the following type:

           struct dl_phdr_info {
               ElfW(Addr)        dlpi_addr;  /* Base address of object */
               const char       *dlpi_name;  /* (Null-terminated) name of
                                                object */
               const ElfW(Phdr) *dlpi_phdr;  /* Pointer to array of
                                                ELF program headers
                                                for this object */
               ElfW(Half)        dlpi_phnum; /* # of items in dlpi_phdr */
           };

       (The ElfW() macro definition turns its argument into the name of an ELF data
       type suitable for the hardware architecture.  For example, on a 32-bit
       platform, ElfW(Addr) yields the data type name Elf32_Addr.  Further
       information on these types can be found in the <elf.h> and <link.h> header
       files.)

       The dlpi_addr field indicates the base address of the shared object (i.e., the
       difference between the virtual memory address of the shared object and the
       offset of that object in the file from which it was loaded).  The dlpi_name
       field is a null-terminated string giving the pathname from which the shared
       object was loaded.

       To understand the meaning of the dlpi_phdr and dlpi_phnum fields, we need to
       be aware that an ELF shared object consists of a number of segments, each of
       which has a corresponding program header describing the segment.  The
       dlpi_phdr field is a pointer to an array of the program headers for this
       shared object.  The dlpi_phnum field indicates the size of this array.

       These program headers are structures of the following form:

           typedef struct {
               Elf32_Word  p_type;    /* Segment type */
               Elf32_Off   p_offset;  /* Segment file offset */
               Elf32_Addr  p_vaddr;   /* Segment virtual address */
               Elf32_Addr  p_paddr;   /* Segment physical address */
               Elf32_Word  p_filesz;  /* Segment size in file */
               Elf32_Word  p_memsz;   /* Segment size in memory */
               Elf32_Word  p_flags;   /* Segment flags */
               Elf32_Word  p_align;   /* Segment alignment */
           } Elf32_Phdr;

       Note that we can calculate the location of a particular program header, x, in
       virtual memory using the formula:

         addr == info->dlpi_addr + info->dlpi_phdr[x].p_vaddr;

RETURN VALUE         top

       The dl_iterate_phdr() function returns whatever value was returned by the last
       call to callback.

VERSIONS         top

       dl_iterate_phdr() has been supported in glibc since version 2.2.4.

CONFORMING TO         top

       The dl_iterate_phdr() function is Linux-specific and should be avoided in
       portable applications.

EXAMPLE         top

       The following program displays a list of pathnames of the shared objects it
       has loaded.  For each shared object, the program lists the virtual addresses
       at which the object's ELF segments are loaded.

       #define _GNU_SOURCE
       #include <link.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <stdio.h>

       static int
       callback(struct dl_phdr_info *info, size_t size, void *data)
       {
           int j;

           printf("name=%s (%d segments)\n", info->dlpi_name,
               info->dlpi_phnum);

           for (j = 0; j < info->dlpi_phnum; j++)
                printf("\t\t header %2d: address=%10p\n", j,
                    (void *) (info->dlpi_addr + info->dlpi_phdr[j].p_vaddr));
           return 0;
       }

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
           dl_iterate_phdr(callback, NULL);

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO         top

       ldd(1), objdump(1), readelf(1), dlopen(3), elf(5), ld.so(8), and the
       Executable and Linking Format Specification available at various locations
       online.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.32 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
       at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

GNU                                   2007-05-18                   DL_ITERATE_PHDR(3)

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