This is the README for class-dump.2.1.2.NIHS.bs.tar.gz [Download] [Browse] [Up]
class-dump is a utility for examining the Objective-C segment of
Mach-O files. It generates the @interface and @protocol declarations
for classes, categories and protocols.
Version 2 is a re-implementation of Eric P. Scott's class-dump, and
works with the frameworks in Openstep 4.x.
The source compiles on Nextstep 3.3 with Foundation, Openstep, and
Rhapsody DR2. Binary releases are available for all architectures
available on each of these:
class-dump-2.1.2-PI-bs.tar.gz (Rhapsody DR2)
class-dump.2.1.2.m.NIS.bs.tar.gz (Openstep)
class-dump.2.1.2.NIHS.bs.tar.gz (Nextstep)
Compiling
Bison is required to compile this. There should be no warnings.
To compile first copy the PB.project and Makefiles from one
of the Nextstep, Openstep or Rhapsody directories into the main
source directory and then build it.
Differences between 2.1.1 and 2.1.2
- Tom Hageman has provided the changes to make it work with object
files and bundles. In the previous version, the output was empty.
- It shouldn't crash if there are fewer types than it expects while
formatting a method. This is most likely triggered by incompatible
current versions of frameworks.
Differences between 2.1.0 and 2.1.1
- Compiles under Rhapsody, Openstep and Foundation based Nextstep
3.3. Tom Hageman provided the changes to get it working with
Nextstep 3.3 and compiled it quad-fat.
- Under Rhapsody, the -C option now takes egrep style regular
expressions to match categories and protocols. It will still
work as before with text strings, but you can, for example,
specify -C 'View|Window' to match classes with both strings.
Differences between 2.0 and 2.1.0
- The -a option has been split into -a, which just shows instance
variable offsets, and -A, which shows method addresses.
(Suggested by Charles Lloyd.)
- Protocol definitions are all printed at the beginning of the
output for each file. Duplicate protocol definitions are no
longer shown.
- New option, -S, to sort the output. Protocols are sorted by
name. Classes and categories are sorted by name. Class and
instance methods are each sorted by name. (Suggested by
Charles Lloyd.)
- When the -S option is not used, the method definitions are
printed out reversed from the order they are found in the
Mach-O file. This should reflect the order they are declared
in the original source file.
- The effect of the -C option has changed. It now matches
category and protocol names instead of just class names.
(Carl Lindberg pointed out that categories should also be matched.)
- Corrected output when the target file doesn't have an
Objective-C segment.
- An 'id *' type should now be printed correctly.
- Fixed printing of pointers to arrays.
- Fixed printing of multi-dimensional arrays.
- Made #ifdefs of LC_PREBOUND_DYLIB and LC_LOAD_DYLIB independant
for compiling under 3.3 (Suggested by Carl Lindberg.)
- This now uses the Foundation framework, so it may not work with
Nextstep 3.x.
- flex is no longer required.
- The version number of class-dump is now included in the output.
Visible differences between version 2 and version 1
- class-dump works with framework based files (the whole point of this
exercise!)
- The class declaration shows the adopted protocols.
- Protocol definitions are shown before (rather than after) the class
declaration.
- New option, -r, to recursively expand frameworks and fixed VM
shared libraries.
- A comment is generated to show the file where the classes are
defined. This is helpful when using the -r option.
- New option, -s, to use "char *" instead of "STR".
Known problems
- The Nexttime bundles under 4.1 seem to have invalid pointers for some of
the method names (they point into the __meth_var_types section instead of
the __meth_var_names section) and therefore generate errors. This may be
caused from being compiled against a different "current version" of a
framework than what is available on the current system. For example:
4.1 Nexttime bundles: compatibility version 129.0.0, current version 153.0.0
4.1 Foundation framework: compatibility version 129.0.0, current version 154.0.0
This also shows up in the AppleMenuOptions.app under Rhapsody DR2.
- A couple old applications have type strings that the parser can't handle.
Comments and suggestions are welcomed.
Steve Nygard <nygard@telusplanet.net>
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.