dlsym returning NULL
 

Hi,

Am trying to resolve the address of a function using dlsym, but for reasons beyond me every call to dlsym to resolve either fstat or lstat or stat returns nil.

The strange thing is I can call these functions without any difficulty so it isn't a problem with files being included or anything like that.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Tim

which file are you expecting to find the symbols stat and lstat in? if your trying to use the glibc ones then a quick look at the output of

objdump -t /lib/libc-2.2.5.so | awk '{print $6}' | grep stat$
(command may vary with different systems)

gives

fts_stat
svcraw_stat
svctcp_stat
rendezvous_stat
svcudp_stat
svcunix_stat
rendezvous_stat
_lxstat
_xstat
_IO_default_stat
_fxstat
ustat
__lxstat
_IO_file_stat
__xstat
__fxstat

shows there is no stat or lstat in glibc, i suggest you read the header file(/usr/include/sys/stat.h) to find out which symbol you want.

I hadn't realised that the stat family of functions were in fact wrappers. Which is why the call was failing. Should have had a more detailed look through the stat.h header file.

Thanks for the help