binparse

A colorful, user-friendly alternative to readelf for analyzing ELF binaries.

binparse provides beautiful colored terminal output with human-readable descriptions of all ELF structures including headers, segments, sections, and symbols. It supports both 32-bit and 64-bit ELF files with little and big endian byte ordering.

Installation

From Cargo

cargo install binparse

From source

git clone https://github.com/kunalsinghdadhwal/binparse.git
cd binparse
cargo build --release

The binary will be available at target/release/binparse.

Install globally

cargo install --path .

Usage

binparse [OPTIONS] <FILE>

Options

Flag	Long	Description
-H	--header	Display ELF header
-p	--segments	Display program headers (segments)
-s	--sections	Display section headers
	--symbols	Display symbol tables
-a	--all	Display all information
-h	--help	Print help
-V	--version	Print version

Examples

Display ELF header (default behavior):

binparse /usr/bin/ls

Display program headers:

binparse -p /usr/bin/ls

Display section headers:

binparse -s /usr/bin/ls

Display symbol tables:

binparse --symbols /usr/bin/ls

Display all information:

binparse -a /usr/bin/ls

Combine multiple options:

binparse -H -p -s /usr/bin/ls

Sample Output

File: /usr/bin/ls
Size: 142312 bytes
Format: 64-bit, little endian, System V

ELF Header
  e_ident
    Magic: (ELF) (7F 45 4C 46)
    Class (EI_CLASS): 64-bit (2)
    Data (EI_DATA): little endian (1)
    Version (EI_VERSION): current (1)
    OS/ABI (EI_OSABI): System V (0)
    ABI Version (EI_ABIVERSION): 0
  Core
    Type (e_type): Shared object file - ET_DYN (0x0003)
    Machine (e_machine): AMD x86-64 (0x003E)
    Version (e_version): 1 (current) (0x00000001)
    Flags (e_flags): none (0x00000000)
    ELF Header Size (e_ehsize): 64 bytes
  Addresses / Offsets
    Entry Point (e_entry): 0x0000000000006D30
    Program Headers Offset (e_phoff): 0x0000000000000040
    Section Headers Offset (e_shoff): 0x0000000000022428
    Program Header Size (e_phentsize): 56 bytes
    Program Header Count (e_phnum): 13
    Section Header Size (e_shentsize): 64 bytes
    Section Header Count (e_shnum): 31
    Section Name String Table Index (e_shstrndx): 30

Features

• Full ELF header analysis with e_ident, core fields, and address/offset information
• Program header (segment) display with human-readable type descriptions
• Section header display with names resolved from .shstrtab
• Symbol table display for both .symtab and .dynsym
• Human-readable decoding of:
  • Machine architectures (x86, x86-64, ARM, AArch64, RISC-V, and 50+ others)
  • OS/ABI identifiers (System V, Linux, FreeBSD, etc.)
  • Segment types (PT_LOAD, PT_DYNAMIC, PT_GNU_STACK, etc.)
  • Section types and flags
  • Symbol types, bindings, and visibility
• Colored output for improved readability
• Graceful error handling for invalid or unsupported files

Dependencies

• clap - Command-line argument parsing
• colored - Terminal colors
• goblin - Binary format parsing
• thiserror - Error handling

Comparison with readelf

Feature	binparse	readelf
Colored output	Yes	No
Human-readable descriptions	Yes	Limited
ELF header	Yes	Yes
Program headers	Yes	Yes
Section headers	Yes	Yes
Symbol tables	Yes	Yes
Relocations	No	Yes
Dynamic section	No	Yes
Notes	No	Yes
Version info	No	Yes