The GNU Binary Utilities, or binutils, is a collection of programming tools maintained by the GNU Project for working with executable code including assembly, linking and many other development operations.
The tools are originally from Cygnus Solutions.
The tools are typically used along with other GNU tools such as GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger.
The tools include: Ulrich Drepper wrote elfutils, to partially replace GNU Binutils, purely for Linux and with support only for ELF and DWARF.
It distributes three libraries with it for programmatic access.