How to print a list of symbols exported from a dynamic library

Question

So I've been trying to get dynamic libraries to work in my XCode project under Mac OS X. So far no joy.

I am able to load the dylib file, but when I call dlsym to get the function pointer, it returns 0 and dlerror says symbol not found.

So I am wondering if there is a simple way to list the symbols that are exported from a dylib file. Any ideas would be great.

score 184 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 29 '20 at 17:51

184

man 1 nm

For example:

nm -gU /usr/local/Cellar/cairo/1.12.16/lib/cairo/libcairo-trace.0.dylib

edited Jan 29 '20 at 17:51

Denis Murphy

answered Dec 22 '10 at 04:23

MK.

2

Under OS X Leopard (10.5, yeah, I know...) you should use `nm -gu` , i.e. the `-u` option is lowercase. – András Aszódi Apr 23 '15 at 08:17
4

man 1 nm is self-contained and will continue working when command line changes :p – MK. Oct 16 '15 at 12:33
11

@MK. `man 1 nm` lists a lot of things one can do with nm. Again, it's an external resource one can read through to discover a solution, but not a solution itself to the requested _“a simple way to list the symbols that are exported from a dylib file”_. “`nm -gU ….dylib`” is, however. – Slipp D. Thompson Apr 27 '16 at 04:32
How about for macOS frameworks:`/System/Library/Frameworks/Cocoa.framework/Versions/A/Cocoa` – vaughan May 18 '23 at 14:59

linuxbuild · Answer 2 · 2015-09-13T20:32:59.413

66

otool -TV your.dylib

OR

nm -g your.dylib

edited Sep 13 '15 at 20:32

answered Oct 27 '12 at 07:50

linuxbuild

5

On new macOS, otool -T will show `otool: -T functionality obsolete` use objdump -t – joseph.smeng Mar 03 '17 at 13:36
While it's true that `otool -T` reports `functionality obsolete` in newer OS X, it's also true that (for dynamic libraries) `objdump -t` will report `The file was not recognized as a valid object file.` – TML Jul 25 '17 at 19:33

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 29 '13 at 07:00

16

Use nm -a your.dylib

It will print all the symbols including globals

answered Aug 29 '13 at 07:00

Omkar Ramtekkar

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 03 '16 at 11:14

0

Use Mach-OView for viewing all the Symbols in dylib

answered Jun 03 '16 at 11:14

Sahil Doshi

I was excited to have learned of this GUI but it crashed for me after I loaded a dylib. I'm using macOS Mojave. – chrisdembia Jun 19 '19 at 16:43

4 Answers4