crossbinutils

Crossbinutils refers to the collection of binary utilities that are built for a target architecture different from the host system. They are a subset of the GNU binutils suite and include tools such as as (assembler), ld (linker), objdump, readelf, nm, ar, ranlib, strip, objcopy, size, strings, and addr2line. When used in a cross-compilation toolchain, crossbinutils produce and examine binaries for the target format rather than the host, enabling development for embedded systems, mobile platforms, and other architectures.

In practice, crossbinutils are paired with a cross-compiler (for example GCC or Clang configured with a specific --target triplet) and a sysroot that holds the target's libraries and headers. The tools must be compatible with the target ABI and the rest of the toolchain to correctly assemble, link, and inspect code for the target. They allow building, debugging, and optimizing software without running it on the host hardware.

Building and distribution usually involve configuring binutils with a --target option and installing the resulting tools into a separate location labeled for the target. Many operating systems provide cross-binutils packages, typically named to reflect the target architecture (for example, a triplet like arm-none-eabi-binutils). In continuous integration or embedded-project workflows, crossbinutils are a core component of the toolchain that enables reproducible cross-platform builds.

The GNU Binutils project develops and maintains crossbinutils, and the tools are generally released under the GNU General Public License. Crossbinutils play a key role in enabling software development across diverse architectures while preserving compatibility with the broader GNU toolchain.