Programming

Hi,
I want to write a program in C or in Perl which will tell me that a function is called in which executables.
I tried to use the unix command like 'nm', 'strings' and so on to find out whether a function is called in that executable or not but could not able to find a clue. The whole object is dummed inside the executable and it does not specifiy me whether the function is really called or not.
The function is a seperate file with several other function. If either of the function is called from that object file then the whole object is dumped inside the executable which does not show whether the function in the object file is really called in the exe.

ex : file test1.c has function test1(), test2() and test3() which will only create object test1.o
there is 3 executable exe1 , exe2 and exe3
exe1 is calling test1() which means test1.o will be dummped whole.
exe2 is calling test2() which means test1.o will be also dumped here
exe3 is calling test3() which means test1.o will be also dumped here

i need to know in which exe test2() is really called which means only exe2 should come in the result.
Please give me some hint since i need the answer as soon as possible.

Thanks.

This is a link issue. Let me give you an example:

Code:

grep JSInitReport tmp.c 
... returns nothing, the symbol in not in tmp.c
nm tmp | grep JSInitReport  
... returns nothing

ll tmp
-rw-r--r--   1 jmcnama    prog        21392 Jan 23 08:33 tmp
.. note the size of the tmp executable image file.
.. if I add this to the list of input files to cc
/utility/c/lib/libsctu.a
.... Now:
nm tmp | grep JSInitReport      
JSInitReport        |     12484|extern|entry  |$CODE$
ll tmp
-rw-r--r--   1 jmcnama    prog        214925 Jan 23 08:39 tmp
... note the executable image is now almost ten times larger because of new static symbols

The linker added the symbol, even though the primary module did not call it.
And it will never be executed

You need to find a different way to link your files if you have to use nm to find only symbols that are actually invoked.

I believe if you use ar to create a library, you can then ask the linker to search the library, rather than including all the symbols from the whole archive. Use the

Code:

 -l <file.a> -a archive

syntax