c - dladdr doesn't return the function name

Question

I'm trying to use dladdr. It correctly locates the library, but it does not find the function name. I can call objdump, do a little math, and get the address of the function that I pass dladdr. If objdump can see it, why can't dladdr?

Here is my function:

const char *FuncName(const void *pFunc)
{
Dl_info  DlInfo;
int  nRet;

    // Lookup the name of the function given the function pointer
    if ((nRet = dladdr(pFunc, &DlInfo)) != 0)
        return DlInfo.dli_sname;
    return NULL;
}

Here is a gdb transcript showing what I get.

Program received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
[Switching to Thread 0xf7f4c6c0 (LWP 28365)]
0xffffe410 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
(gdb) p MatchRec8Cmp
$2 = {void (TCmp *, TWork *, TThread *)} 0xf1b62e73 <MatchRec8Cmp>
(gdb) call FuncName(MatchRec8Cmp)
$3 = 0x0
(gdb) call FuncName(0xf1b62e73)
$4 = 0x0
(gdb) b FuncName
Breakpoint 1 at 0xf44bdddb: file threads.c, line 3420.
(gdb) call FuncName(MatchRec8Cmp)

Breakpoint 1, FuncName (pFunc=0xf1b62e73) at threads.c:3420
3420    {
The program being debugged stopped while in a function called from GDB.
When the function (FuncName) is done executing, GDB will silently
stop (instead of continuing to evaluate the expression containing
the function call).
(gdb) s
3426            if ((nRet = dladdr(pFunc, &DlInfo)) != 0)
(gdb) 
3427                    return DlInfo.dli_sname;
(gdb) p DlInfo 
$5 = {dli_fname = 0x8302e08 "/xxx/libdata.so", dli_fbase = 0xf1a43000, dli_sname = 0x0, dli_saddr = 0x0}
(gdb) p nRet
$6 = 1
(gdb) p MatchRec8Cmp - 0xf1a43000
$7 = (void (*)(TCmp *, TWork *, TThread *)) 0x11fe73
(gdb) q
The program is running.  Exit anyway? (y or n) y

Here is what I get from objdmp

$ objdump --syms /xxx/libdata.so | grep MatchRec8Cmp
0011fe73 l     F .text  00000a98              MatchRec8Cmp

Sure enough, 0011fe73 = MatchRec8Cmp - 0xf1a43000. Anyone know why dladdr can't return dli_sname = "MatchRec8Cmp" ???

I'm running Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.4 (Tikanga). I have seen this work before. Maybe it's my compile switches:

CFLAGS = -m32 -march=i686 -msse3 -ggdb3 -pipe -fno-common -fomit-frame-pointer 
        -Ispio -fms-extensions  -Wmissing-declarations -Wstrict-prototypes -Wunused  -Wall 
        -Wno-multichar -Wdisabled-optimization -Wmissing-prototypes -Wnested-externs 
        -Wpointer-arith -Wextra -Wno-sign-compare -Wno-sequence-point 
        -I../../../include -I/usr/local/include -fPIC 
        -D$(Uname) -D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE 

I have tried it with -g instead of -ggdb3 although I don't think debugging symbols have anything to do with elf.

Answer 1

If objdump can see it, why can't dladdr

dladdr can only see functions exported in the dynamic symbol table. Most likely

 nm -D /xxx/libdata.so | grep MatchRec8Cmp

shows nothing. Indeed your objdump shows that the symbol is local, which proves that this is the cause.

The symbol is local either because it has a hidden visibility, is static, or because you hide it in some other way (e.g. with a linker script).

Update:

Those marked with the 'U' work with dladdr. They get "exported" automatically somehow.

They work because they are exported from some other shared library. The U stands for unresolved, i.e. defined elsewhere.