How to See the Contents of Windows library lib

Question

I have a binary file - Windows static library (*.lib).
Is there a simple way to find out names of the functions and their interface from that library ?

Something similar to emfar and elfdump utilities (on Linux systems) ?

User · Answer

DUMPBIN  EXPORTS  Will get most of that information and hitting MSDN will get the rest   Get one of the Visual Studio packages  C

User · Answer

dumpbin -exports  works for dll  but sometimes may not work for lib  For lib we can use  dumpbin -linkermember  or just  dumpbin -linkermember 1

User · Answer

Like it can be seen in other answers you'll have to open a Developer Command Prompt offered in your version of Visual Studio to have dumpbin.exe in your execution path. Otherwise, you can set the necessary environment variables by hand.

dumpbin /EXPORTS yourlibrary.lib will usually show just a tiny list of symbols. In many cases, it won't show the functions the library exports.

dumpbin /SYMBOLS /EXPORTS yourlibrary.lib will show that symbols, but also an incredibly huge amount of other symbos. So, you got to filter them, possibly with a pipe to findstr (if you want a MS-Windows tool), or grep.

Searching the Static keyword using one of these tools seems to be a good hint.

User · Answer

LIB EXE is the librarian for VS  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library 7ykb2k5f VS 80  aspx   like libtool on Unix

User · Answer

DUMPBIN  EXPORTS  Will get most of that information and hitting MSDN will get the rest   Get one of the Visual Studio packages  C

User · Answer

1  Open a Developer Command Prompt for VS 2017  or whatever version you have on your machine  It should be located under  Start menu --  All programs --  Visual Studio 2017  or whatever version you have on your machine  --  Visual Studio Tools   --  Developer Command Prompt for VS 2017   2  Enter the following command   dumpbin  EXPORTS my lib name lib

User · Answer

dumpbin -exports  works for dll  but sometimes may not work for lib  For lib we can use  dumpbin -linkermember  or just  dumpbin -linkermember 1

User · Answer

1  Open a Developer Command Prompt for VS 2017  or whatever version you have on your machine  It should be located under  Start menu --  All programs --  Visual Studio 2017  or whatever version you have on your machine  --  Visual Studio Tools   --  Developer Command Prompt for VS 2017   2  Enter the following command   dumpbin  EXPORTS my lib name lib

User · Answer

Like it can be seen in other answers you'll have to open a Developer Command Prompt offered in your version of Visual Studio to have dumpbin.exe in your execution path. Otherwise, you can set the necessary environment variables by hand.

dumpbin /EXPORTS yourlibrary.lib will usually show just a tiny list of symbols. In many cases, it won't show the functions the library exports.

dumpbin /SYMBOLS /EXPORTS yourlibrary.lib will show that symbols, but also an incredibly huge amount of other symbos. So, you got to filter them, possibly with a pipe to findstr (if you want a MS-Windows tool), or grep.

Searching the Static keyword using one of these tools seems to be a good hint.

User · Answer

Open a visual command console  Visual Studio Command Prompt   dumpbin  ARCHIVEMEMBERS openssl x86 lib   or  lib  LIST openssl x86 lib   or just open it with 7-zip    its an AR archive

User · Answer

Assuming you re talking about a static library  DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS shows the functions and data objects in the library   If you re talking about an import library  a  lib used to refer to symbols exported from a DLL   then you want DUMPBIN  EXPORTS   Note that for functions linked with the  C  binary interface  this still won t get you return values  parameters  or calling convention   That information isn t encoded in the  lib at all  you have to know that ahead of time  via prototypes in header files  for example  in order to call them correctly   For functions linked with the C   binary interface  the calling convention and arguments are encoded in the exported name of the function  also called  name mangling     DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS will show you both the  mangled  function name as well as the decoded set of parameters

User · Answer

I wanted a tool like ar t libfile a in unix  The windows equivalent is lib exe  list libfile lib

User · Answer

LIB EXE is the librarian for VS  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library 7ykb2k5f VS 80  aspx   like libtool on Unix

User · Answer

Assuming you re talking about a static library  DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS shows the functions and data objects in the library   If you re talking about an import library  a  lib used to refer to symbols exported from a DLL   then you want DUMPBIN  EXPORTS   Note that for functions linked with the  C  binary interface  this still won t get you return values  parameters  or calling convention   That information isn t encoded in the  lib at all  you have to know that ahead of time  via prototypes in header files  for example  in order to call them correctly   For functions linked with the C   binary interface  the calling convention and arguments are encoded in the exported name of the function  also called  name mangling     DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS will show you both the  mangled  function name as well as the decoded set of parameters

User · Answer

DUMPBIN  EXPORTS  Will get most of that information and hitting MSDN will get the rest   Get one of the Visual Studio packages  C

User · Answer

Open a visual command console  Visual Studio Command Prompt   dumpbin  ARCHIVEMEMBERS openssl x86 lib   or  lib  LIST openssl x86 lib   or just open it with 7-zip    its an AR archive

User · Answer

LIB EXE is the librarian for VS  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library 7ykb2k5f VS 80  aspx   like libtool on Unix

User · Answer

DUMPBIN  EXPORTS  Will get most of that information and hitting MSDN will get the rest   Get one of the Visual Studio packages  C

User · Answer

Assuming you re talking about a static library  DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS shows the functions and data objects in the library   If you re talking about an import library  a  lib used to refer to symbols exported from a DLL   then you want DUMPBIN  EXPORTS   Note that for functions linked with the  C  binary interface  this still won t get you return values  parameters  or calling convention   That information isn t encoded in the  lib at all  you have to know that ahead of time  via prototypes in header files  for example  in order to call them correctly   For functions linked with the C   binary interface  the calling convention and arguments are encoded in the exported name of the function  also called  name mangling     DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS will show you both the  mangled  function name as well as the decoded set of parameters

User · Answer

I wanted a tool like ar t libfile a in unix  The windows equivalent is lib exe  list libfile lib

User · Answer

Assuming you re talking about a static library  DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS shows the functions and data objects in the library   If you re talking about an import library  a  lib used to refer to symbols exported from a DLL   then you want DUMPBIN  EXPORTS   Note that for functions linked with the  C  binary interface  this still won t get you return values  parameters  or calling convention   That information isn t encoded in the  lib at all  you have to know that ahead of time  via prototypes in header files  for example  in order to call them correctly   For functions linked with the C   binary interface  the calling convention and arguments are encoded in the exported name of the function  also called  name mangling     DUMPBIN  SYMBOLS will show you both the  mangled  function name as well as the decoded set of parameters

User · Answer

LIB EXE is the librarian for VS  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library 7ykb2k5f VS 80  aspx   like libtool on Unix

[windows] How to See the Contents of Windows library (*.lib)

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