ELFInsight: A Powerful (ARM) ELF Symbol and Call Graph Visualizer for VS Code

Welcome to ELFInsight, your go-to Visual Studio Code extension for analyzing ELF files with ease! ELFInsight offers a streamlined, user-friendly interface to view symbol tables, inspect memory usage, and visualize function call graphs.

🚀 How to Use:

1. Open your embedded project:

   • Find your elf file, click on it and it will open with ELFInsight as long as no other extension is set to open .elf files. The symbol table and memory usage will be displayed and the call graph will be generated.

2. Reccomendation:

   • To improve call graph results, compile your code with optimization level -Og (Optimize for Debugging) this helps keep debugging information to capture indirect function calls like pointers to functions etc.
   • ElfInsight will if the elf file being read was not made with the same version of ARM GNU binaries pointed to in the settings, there will be a missmatch of debug information structure.

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✨ Features:

1. ELF Symbol Table Viewer:

   • Effortlessly view all symbols in your ELF files, categorized by name, section, type, size, and memory address.
   • Dynamic Sorting: Quickly sort symbols by name or size with just a click.
   • Search Functionality: Instantly find symbols with the built-in search feature, which highlights matches for easy identification. 🔍

2. Memory Usage Breakdown:

   • Get a clear picture of memory distribution across key sections like .text, .bss, .data, and .rodata.
   • Interactive Bar Chart: Visualize the memory usage of each section, ensuring you stay aware of your project’s memory footprint. 📊

3. Call Graph Visualization:

   • Understand your program's structure with a detailed call graph.
   • Nodes represent functions, while edges show relationships between them, allowing you to trace execution paths. 🧭
   • Interactive Navigation: Click on nodes to highlight incoming and outgoing edges, making it easy to follow the flow of function calls.

4. Path Tracing:

   • Enter a start and end function to trace the path between them, visually mapping how the functions interact in your codebase. 🛤️

5. Flexible Search in Call Graphs:

   • Quickly locate functions in the call graph by searching for function names.
   • Matched nodes are highlighted, and the view zooms in for easy inspection. 🎯

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This extension is perfect for firmware developers, embedded engineers, or anyone needing deeper insight into their ELF binaries. Happy coding with ELFInsight! 🎉

Developed with ❤️ by Eddie.

File issues/bugs/requests on GitHub: ELFInsight Repository 🖥️