Understanding the output of ldd

Posted by nebukadnezzar on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by nebukadnezzar
Published on 2010-06-08T08:38:32Z Indexed on 2010/06/08 8:42 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 365

Filed under:

linux

|

ldd

I'm having a hard time understanding the output of ldd - Especially the processor identifiers. The string in question is this one:

Shortest.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, from ']', not stripped

I have several questions about it:

What does "ELF" mean? I know that's what Linux binaries are called like (Windows Binaries are called PE Binaries, "Portable Executable" Binaries), but isn't ELF an abbreviation for something?
What does LSB mean? I can't even guess it...
I see the string "Intel" there, now I seriously wonder about the portability of Linux binaries, as ldd seems to expect every binary to be compiled on a intel processor... but what if it wasn't compiled on a Intel processor? Or when I attempt to run the binary on a computer that doesn't run ontop of a Intel processor?
Why the ']'? My guess is it should be some sort of Linker identify, but ']' doesn't look much like a Identifier...

Thanks in advance

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about linux

apt-get install and update fail

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I've got a problem with apt-get update and apt-get install ... commands . every time update or installing fails and errors are : Get:1 http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg [198B] Ign http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main Translation-en_US Get:2 http://dl… >>> More
kernel module compiling error

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
sh@ubuntu:/home/ccpp/helloworld$ make gcc-4.6 -O2 -DMODULE -D_KERNEL_ -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -isystem /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include -c -o hello-1.o hello-1.c hello-1.c:4:0: warning: "MODULE" redefined [enabled by default] <command-line>:0:0: note: this is… >>> More
Build-Essentials installation failing

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I am having trouble accessing the several critical header files that show to be a part of the build process. The "Ubuntu Software Center" shows "Build Essentials" as installed: Next I did the following two commands, which did not improve the problem: ~$ sudo apt-get install build-essential [sudo]… >>> More
Updating Debian kernel

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to update my Debian machine to 2.6.32-46 (which is the new stable). However, after doing apt-get update my apt-cache search linux-image shows me: linux-headers-2.6.32-5-486 - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-486 linux-headers-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem linux-headers-2… >>> More
Serial connection over a single USB cable (Windows to linux, or linux to linux)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm helping out with a project for an embedded device that only has USB and no serial. This device is running Linux. These days, when we need to connect to a serial port on a device we typically use a USB to serial adapter (on something like a phone system or a load balancing device, etc). I would… >>> More

Related posts about ldd

ldd output showing shared object file whose function is not called

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I ran ldd command on an executable created by Open MPI. It shows a reference to libpthread.so Using LD_PRELOAD variable I created my own implementation of pthread_create, but from the it output it seems that MPI implementation is not calling pthread_create as I had expected. Why does ldd show pthread… >>> More
Understanding the output of ldd

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm having a hard time understanding the output of ldd - Especially the processor identifiers. The string in question is this one: Shortest.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, from ']', not stripped I have several questions about it: What does… >>> More
Unable to load libsctp.so for non root user

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a Linux application that uses the libsctp.so library. When I run it as root, it runs fine. But when I run it as an ordinary user, it gives the following error: error while loading shared libraries: libsctp.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory But, when I do… >>> More
Why would autoconf/automake project link against installed library instead of local development libr

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm creating a library libgdata that has some tests and non-installed programs. I am running into the problem that once I've installed the library once, the programs seem to be linking to the installed version and not the local version in ../src/libgdata.la any longer. What could cause this? Am I… >>> More
Changes made to cli's php.ini not taking effect

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have two php.ini files - /etc/php.ini which loads in case of cli /opt/lampp/etc/php.ini which loads in case of browser. I am able to use PHP's Mailparse extension after adding the line extension=mailparse.so in the /opt/lampp/etc/php.ini and restarting lampp. But I am not able to load the… >>> More