How to list library dependencies of a non-native binary?

binutils, cross-compiling, gcc, linux, shared-libraries

Solution

is there any way to get a list of the dynamically linked dependency for of a foreign binary

You can list direct dependencies of a binary easily enough:

readelf -d a.out | grep NEEDED

 0x0000000000000001 (NEEDED)             Shared library: [librt.so.1]
 0x0000000000000001 (NEEDED)             Shared library: [libc.so.6]

I know of no way to recursively continue this to get the full list (as `ldd` does). You'll have to repeat the process for every `NEEDED` library by hand.

Problem

When developing for native platform, I can use ldd to list all the shared libraries (.so files) a binary executable I build will try to load upon start-up. But when cross-compiling, I don't know how to get the same information. The `ldd` is not a normal binutils utility, like `strip` or `ar`, that can be built alongside `gcc` for cross compiling, but instead, it is a cryptic shell script that apparently can only run on native platform. So, using the cross-target binutils tools, is there any way to get a list of the dynamically linked dependency for of a foreign binary?

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