Linux: Display Binary Object Section Size, Text & Data Segment Information

You can use the size command on a binary object file to display the section sizes and the total size of the text and data segments.

The size command displays the size of all the sections in the binary object file, along with their virtual addresses and names. By looking at the size of the .text and .data sections, you can get the total size of the text and data segments.

Here’s the basic syntax:

Replace binary_object_file with the path to the binary object file you want to examine.

For example, to display the section sizes and the text and data segment information for the ls command, you can run the following command:

Output:

In this example, the size command displays the sizes of the .text, .data, and .bss sections of the ls binary object file, along with their total size (dec), in decimal and hexadecimal format.

The .text section contains the executable code, and the .data section contains the initialized global and static variables. The .bss section contains the uninitialized global and static variables.

By looking at the size of the .text and .data sections, you can determine the total size of the text and data segments, which in this example is 122704 + 12104 = 134808 bytes.