pvs [-Cdlnorsv] [-I index-expr] [-N name] file...

The pvs utility displays any internal version information contained within an ELF file. Commonly, these files are dynamic executables and shared objects, and possibly relocatable objects. This version information can fall into one of two categories:

Version definitions describe the interfaces that are made available by an ELF file. Each version definition is associated to a set of global symbols provided by the file. Version definitions can be assigned to a file during its creation by the link-editor using the -M option and the associated mapfile directives. See the Linker and Libraries Guide for more details.

Version dependencies describe the binding requirements of dynamic objects on the version definitions of any shared object dependencies. When a dynamic object is built with a shared object, the link-editor records information within the dynamic object indicating that the shared object is a dependency. This dependency must be satisfied at runtime. If the shared object also contains version definitions, then those version definitions that satisfy the global symbol requirements of the dynamic object are also recorded in the dynamic object being created. At process initialization, the runtime linker uses any version dependencies as a means of validating the interface requirements of the dynamic objects used to construct the process.

The following options are supported. If neither the -d or -r options are specified, both are enabled. -C

example% pvs -I 3 filename

example% pvs -I 3:5 filename

example% pvs -I 10: filename

example% pvs -N 'dependency (version)' filename

The following operands are supported. file

The -I and -N options are collectively referred to as the matching options. These options are used to narrow the range of versions to examine, by index or by name.

Any number and type of matching option can be mixed in a given invocation of pvs. In this case, pvs displays the superset of all versions matched by any of the matching options used. This feature allows for the selection of complex groupings of items using the most convenient form for specifying each item.

Example 1 Displaying version definitions

The following example displays the version definitions of libelf.so.1:

% pvs -d /lib/libelf.so.1
 libelf.so.1;
 SUNW_1.1

Example 2 Creating a one-liner display

A normalized, one-liner display, suitable for creating a mapfile version control directive, can be created using the -n and -o options:

% pvs -don /lib/libelf.so.1
/lib/libelf.so.1 - SUNW_1.1;

Example 3 Displaying version requirements

The following example displays the version requirements of ldd and pvs:

% pvs -r /usr/bin/ldd /usr/bin/pvs
/usr/bin/ldd:
 libelf.so.1 (SUNW_1.1);
 libc.so.1 (SUNW_1.1);
/usr/bin/pvs:
 libelf.so.1 (SUNW_1.1);
 libc.so.1 (SUNW_1.1);

Example 4 Determining a dependency symbol version

The following example displays the shared object from which the ldd command expects to find the printf function at runtime, as well as the version it belongs to:

% pvs -ors /usr/bin/ldd | grep ' printf'
/usr/bin/ldd - libc.so.1 (SYSVABI_1.3): printf;

Example 5 Determine all dependency symbols from a specific version

The -N option can be used to obtain a list of all the symbols from a dependency that belong to a specific version. To determine the symbols that ldd will find from version SYSVABI_1.3 of libc.so.1:

% pvs -s -N 'libc.so.1 (SYSVABI_1.3)' /usr/bin/ldd

 libc.so.1 (SYSVABI_1.3):
 _exit;
 strstr;
 printf;
 __fpstart;
 strncmp;
 lseek;
 strcmp;
 getopt;
 execl;
 close;
 fflush;
 wait;
 strerror;
 putenv;
 sprintf;
 getenv;
 open;
 perror;
 fork;
 strlen;
 geteuid;
 access;
 setlocale;
 atexit;
 fprintf;
 exit;
 read;
 malloc;

Note that the specific list of symbols used by ldd may change between Solaris releases.

Example 6 Display base defined version by index

By convention, the base global version defined by an object has the name of the object. For example, the base version of pvs is named 'pvs'. The base version of any object is always version index 1. Therefore, the -I option can be used to display the base version of any object without having to specify its name:

% pvs -v -I 1 /usr/bin/pvs
 pvs [BASE];

If the requested version information is not found, a non-zero value is returned. Otherwise, a 0 value is returned.

Version information is determined not found when any of the following is true:

elfdump(1), ld(1), ldd(1), strip(1), elf(3ELF), attributes(5)

Linker and Libraries Guide