Commands will let you determine which version(s) of GCC were used to compile and link a binary executable file

his trick will let you determine which version(s) of GCC were used to compile and link a binary executable file:

Code:

strings -a /path/to/binary-file | grep "GCC:" | sort -u

Here is a dirt-simple scripted version of the pipeline.

which-gcc:

#!/bin/bash if [ -z "$1" ] ; then echo "Usage: which-gcc file" echo "Determines GCC version(s) used to build file" exit fi strings -a $1 | grep "GCC:" | sort -u

Here are some examples from my system:

Code:

$ which-gcc /bin/bash GCC: (GNU) 3.4.6 (Gentoo 3.4.6-r1, ssp-3.4.5-1.0, pie-8.7.9)

I'm using GCC 3.4.6.

Code:

$ which-gcc `which vuescan` GCC: (GNU) 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)

This commercial product was built on a Red Hat system, quite some time ago.

Code:

$ which-gcc /opt/google-earth/googleearth-bin GCC: (GNU) 3.4.5 20050809 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 3.4.4-6ubuntu8) GCC: (GNU) 4.0.2

The multiple version lines suggest Google Earth is at least in part statically linked. The final executable and at least one component library were built with different versions of GCC.

Code:

$ which-gcc /usr/bin/ooffice2

ooffice2 is not a GCC executable, thus no output. (It's a Bourne shell script. Reader exercise: produce a useful message when the file argument is not a GCC-created executable. )