[PATCH 6.12 008/567] scripts/faddr2line: Fix "Argument list too long" error

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-01-06T17:16:15Z

From: Pankaj Raghav <p.raghav@samsung.com>

[ Upstream commit ff5c0466486ba8d07ab2700380e8fd6d5344b4e9 ]

The run_readelf() function reads the entire output of readelf into a
single shell variable. For large object files with extensive debug
information, the size of this variable can exceed the system's
command-line argument length limit.

When this variable is subsequently passed to sed via `echo "${out}"`, it
triggers an "Argument list too long" error, causing the script to fail.

Fix this by redirecting the output of readelf to a temporary file
instead of a variable. The sed commands are then modified to read from
this file, avoiding the argument length limitation entirely.

Signed-off-by: Pankaj Raghav <p.raghav@samsung.com>
Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
scripts/faddr2line | 13 +++++++++----
1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/scripts/faddr2line b/scripts/faddr2line
index 1fa6beef9f978..477b6d2aa3179 100755
--- a/scripts/faddr2line
+++ b/scripts/faddr2line
@@ -107,14 +107,19 @@ find_dir_prefix() {

run_readelf() {
local objfile=$1
- local out=$(${READELF} --file-header --section-headers --symbols --wide $objfile)
+ local tmpfile
+ tmpfile=$(mktemp)
+
+ ${READELF} --file-header --section-headers --symbols --wide "$objfile" > "$tmpfile"

# This assumes that readelf first prints the file header, then the section headers, then the symbols.
# Note: It seems that GNU readelf does not prefix section headers with the "There are X section headers"
# line when multiple options are given, so let's also match with the "Section Headers:" line.
- ELF_FILEHEADER=$(echo "${out}" | sed -n '/There are [0-9]* section headers, starting at offset\|Section Headers:/q;p')
- ELF_SECHEADERS=$(echo "${out}" | sed -n '/There are [0-9]* section headers, starting at offset\|Section Headers:/,$p' | sed -n '/Symbol table .* contains [0-9]* entries:/q;p')
- ELF_SYMS=$(echo "${out}" | sed -n '/Symbol table .* contains [0-9]* entries:/,$p')
+ ELF_FILEHEADER=$(sed -n '/There are [0-9]* section headers, starting at offset\|Section Headers:/q;p' "$tmpfile")
+ ELF_SECHEADERS=$(sed -n '/There are [0-9]* section headers, starting at offset\|Section Headers:/,$p' "$tmpfile" | sed -n '/Symbol table .* contains [0-9]* entries:/q;p')
+ ELF_SYMS=$(sed -n '/Symbol table .* contains [0-9]* entries:/,$p' "$tmpfile")
+
+ rm -f -- "$tmpfile"
}

check_vmlinux() {
--
2.51.0