binutils/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.25:
   4
   5 * Add --data option to strings to only print strings in loadable, initialized
   6   data sections.  Change the default behaviour to be --all, but add a new
   7   configure time option of --disable-default-strings-all to restore the old
   8   default behaviour.
   9
  10 * Add --include-all-whitespace to strings.
  11
  12 * Add --dump-section option to objcopy.
  13
  14 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
  15
  16 Changes in 2.24:
  17
  18 * Objcopy now supports wildcard characters in command line options that take
  19   section names.
  20
  21 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
  22
  23 Changes in 2.23:
  24
  25 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
  26
  27 * Add support for x64 Windows target of the delayed-load-library.
  28
  29 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
  30
  31 Changes in 2.22:
  32
  33 * Add support for displaying the contents of .debug.macro sections.
  34
  35 * Add --preprocessor-arg option to windres to specify additional options
  36   passed to preprocessor.
  37
  38 * Add --dwarf-start and --dwarf-end to readelf and objdump.  These are used by
  39   the new Emacs mode, see dwarf-mode.el.
  40
  41 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
  42
  43 changes in 2.21:
  44
  45 * Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of
  46   bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
  47
  48 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
  49
  50 * Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using
  51   the -u / --unwind option.
  52
  53 * Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
  54
  55 * A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format
  56   binaries.
  57
  58 * Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by
  59   '== <ID>' option.
  60
  61 * Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the
  62   address before function name or source filename.
  63
  64 * Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have
  65   a more human readable output.
  66
  67 * The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
  68
  69 Changes in 2.20:
  70
  71 * Add support for delay importing to dlltool.  Use the --output-delaylib <file>
  72   switch to create a delay-import library.  The resulting app will load the dll
  73   as soon as the first function is called.  It will link to __delayLoadHelper2()
  74   from the static delayimp library, which will import LoadLibraryA and
  75   GetProcAddress from kernel32.
  76
  77 * Add a new command line option, --insn-width=WIDTH, to objdump to specify
  78   number of bytes to be displayed on a single line when disassembling
  79   instructions.
  80
  81 * Readelf can now display the relocated contents of a section as a sequence
  82   of bytes via the --relocated-dump=<name|number> command line option.
  83
  84 * The gprof program has been given a new command line option:
  85   --external-symbols-table=<filename> which reads in symbols from a specified
  86   file.
  87
  88 * The plugin target has been added to bfd. It can load the same shared objects
  89   used by gold and uses them to provide basic support for new file formats.
  90
  91 * The verilog memory hex dump file format is now supported as an output format
  92   for objcopy.
  93
  94 * Add --file-alignment, --heap, --image-base, --section-alignment,
  95   --stack and --subsystem command line options to objcopy, which will
  96   set PE optional header.
  97
  98 * Option --dwarf/-W of objdump is now as flexible as readelf --debug-dump/-w.
  99
 100 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 101   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 102   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 103   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 104
 105 * Added --prefix=PREFIX and --prefix-strip=LEVEL switches to objdump to
 106   add absolute paths for -S.
 107
 108 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to dlltool to allow fall-
 109   back to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 110
 111 * Added --identify-strict switch to cause --identify <implib> to
 112   report an error when the import library is associated with
 113   multiple DLLs.
 114
 115 * Added --identify <implib> option to dlltool, which determines the
 116   name of the DLL associated with the specified <implib>.
 117
 118 * Support for PowerPC booke64 instructions has been removed.  The assembler no
 119   longer accepts -mbooke32 or -mbooke64 and the disassembler no longer accepts
 120   -Mbooke32 or -Mbooke64.  Instead, -mbooke and -Mbooke should be used.
 121
 122 Changes in 2.19:
 123
 124 * Added -wL switch to dump decoded contents of .debug_line.
 125
 126 * Added support for "thin" archives which contain pathnames pointing to
 127   object files rather than the files themselves and which contain a
 128   flattened symbol index for all objects, and archives, which have been
 129   added to the archive.
 130
 131 * Added -F switch to objdump to include file offsets in the disassembly.
 132
 133 * Added -c switch to readelf to allow string dumps of archive symbol index.
 134
 135 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 136
 137 * Added -p switch to readelf to allow string dumps of sections.
 138
 139 Changes in 2.18:
 140
 141 * Resolved 37 coding problems in bfd including static array overruns, null
 142   pointer dereferences and use of a malloc buffer after it has been freed, as
 143   revealed by static analysis donated by Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
 144
 145 * The binutils sources are now released under version 3 of the GNU General
 146   Public License.
 147
 148 * A new tool "windmc" has been added for some targets.  This is a message
 149   compiler which attempts to be compatible with the MS version.
 150
 151 * Add codepage support to the windres tool.  It now supports many new
 152   resource types (e.g. MANIFEST, TOOLBAR, etc).  The output generation
 153   for binary files is done now via bfd itself.  The endianess problems
 154   for different hosts are solved.  Dumps of .res files can now be
 155   re-compiled by windres without lossing resources or compilation errors.
 156   Some problems on dialog resource translations are corrected.
 157
 158 * Add --extract-symbol command line option to objcopy, which will
 159   strip everything out of an ordinary object file or executable except
 160   for its symbol table.  Files containing just symbols can be useful
 161   to some OSes.
 162
 163 Changes in 2.17:
 164
 165 * Add "-x NAME" to readelf in addition to "-x NUMBER".
 166
 167 * Add -i and -t switches to cxxfilt.  -i disables the display of implementation
 168   specific extra demangling information (if any) and -t disables the demangling
 169   of types.
 170
 171 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command lines of all tools, so
 172   that extra switches can be read from <file>.
 173
 174 * Add "-W/--dwarf" to objdump to display the contents of the DWARF
 175   debug sections.
 176
 177 * Add "-t/--section-details" to readelf to display section details.
 178   "-N/--full-section-name" is deprecated.
 179
 180 * powerpc-linux ld now supports a variant form of PLT and GOT for the security
 181   conscious.  This form will automatically be chosen when ld detects that all
 182   code in regular object files was generated by gcc -msecure-plt.  The old PLT
 183   and GOT may be forced by a new ld option, --bss-plt.
 184
 185 * Add "-i/--inlines" to addr2line to print enclosing scope information
 186   for inlined function chains, back to first non-inlined function.
 187
 188 * Add "-N/--full-section-name" to readelf to display full section name.
 189
 190 * Add "-M entry:<addr>" switch to objdump to specify a function entry address
 191   when disassembling VAX binaries.
 192
 193 * Add "--globalize-symbol <name>" and "--globalize-symbols <filename>" switches
 194   to objcopy to convert local symbols into global symbols.
 195
 196 * gprof now allows input files to have histogram records for
 197   several memory ranges, provided those ranges are disjoint.
 198
 199 Changes in 2.16:
 200
 201 * Add "-g/--section-groups" to readelf to display section groups.
 202
 203 * objcopy recognizes two new options --strip-unneeded-symbol and
 204   --strip-unneeded-symbols, namely for use together with the wildcard
 205   matching the original --strip-symbol/--strip-symbols provided, but
 206   retaining any symbols matching but needed by relocations.
 207
 208 * readelf can now display address ranges from .debug_range sections.  This
 209   happens automatically when a DW_AT_range attribute is encountered.  The
 210   command line switch --debug-dump=Ranges (or -wR) can also be used to display
 211   the contents of the .debug_range section.
 212
 213 * nm and objdump now have a switch "--special-syms" to enable the displaying of
 214   symbols which the target considers to be special.  By default these symbols
 215   are no longer displayed.  Currently the only special symbols are the Mapping
 216   symbols used by the ARM port to mark transitions between text and data and
 217   between ARM and THUMB code.
 218
 219 * dlltool has a switch "--ext-prefix-alias <prefix>" to generate additional
 220   import and export symbols with <preifx> prepended to them.
 221
 222 Changes in 2.15:
 223
 224 * objcopy for MIPS targets now accepts "-M no-aliases" as an option to the
 225   disassembler to print the "raw" mips instruction mnemonic instead of some
 226   pseudo instruction name.  I.E. print "daddu" or "or" instead of "move",
 227   "sll" instead of "nop", etc.
 228
 229 * objcopy and strip can now take wildcard patterns in symbol names specified on
 230   the command line provided that the --wildcard switch is used to enable them.
 231
 232 * readelf can now parse archives.
 233
 234 * objdump now accepts --debugging-tags to print the debug information in a
 235   format compatible with ctags tool.
 236
 237 * objcopy and strip now accept --only-keep-debug to create a file containing
 238   those sections that would be stripped out by --strip-debug.  The idea is that
 239   this can be used in conjunction with the --add-gnu-debuglink switch to create
 240   a two part program distribution - one a stripped executable and the other the
 241   debugging info.
 242
 243 * objcopy now accepts --add-gnu-debuglink=<file> to insert a .gnu_debuglink
 244   section into a (presumably stripped) executable.  This allows the debug
 245   information for the file to be held in a separate file.
 246
 247 * BFD marks the sections .comment and .note as 'n' in the BSD/POSIX
 248   single-character representation.  This can be checked by running nm
 249   with the -a switch.
 250
 251 Changes in 2.14:
 252
 253 * Added --info switch to objcopy and strip.
 254
 255 * Support for Vitesse IQ2000 added by Red Hat.
 256
 257 * Added 'S' encoding to strings to allow the display of 8-bit characters.
 258
 259 * Added --prefix-symbols=<text>, --prefix-sections=<text> and
 260   --prefix-alloc-sections=<text> to objcopy.
 261
 262 * readelf can handle the extensions to the DWARF2 spec used by the Unified
 263   Parallel C compiler.
 264
 265 * BFD no longer declares a "boolean" type, to avoid clashes with other
 266   headers that declare the same.  Users of BFD should replace boolean,
 267   false and true, with int, 0 and 1, or define their own boolean type.
 268
 269 * Support for IP2K added by Denis Chertykov.
 270
 271 Changes in 2.13:
 272
 273 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 274   and FR500 included.
 275
 276 Changes in version 2.12:
 277
 278 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 279
 280 * size: Add --totals to display summary of sizes (Berkeley format only).
 281
 282 * readelf: Add --wide option to not break section header or segment listing
 283   lines to fit into 80 columns.
 284
 285 * strings: Add --encoding to display wide character strings.  By Markus Kuhn.
 286
 287 * objcopy: Add --rename-section to change section names.
 288
 289 * readelf: Support added for DWARF 2.1 extensions.  Support added for
 290   displaying the contents of .debug.macinfo sections.
 291
 292 * New command line switches added to objcopy to allow symbols to be kept as
 293   global symbols, and also to specify files containing lists of such symbols.
 294   by Honda Hiroki.
 295
 296 * Support for OpenRISC by Johan Rydberg.
 297
 298 * New command line switch to objcopy --alt-machine-code which creates a binary
 299   with an alternate machine code if one is defined in the architecture
 300   description.  Only supported for ELF targets.  By Alexandre Oliva.
 301
 302 * New command line switch to objcopy -B (or --binary-architecture) which sets
 303   the architecture of the output file to the given argument.  This option only
 304   makes sense, if the input target is binary.  Otherwise it is ignored.
 305   By Stefan Geuken.
 306
 307 * Support for PDP-11 by Lars Brinkhoff.
 308
 309 Changes in binutils 2.11:
 310
 311 * Add support for ARM v5t and v5te architectures and Intel's XScale ARM
 312   extenstions.
 313
 314 * Add --srec-len and --srec-forceS3 command line switch to objcopy.
 315   By Luciano Gemme.
 316
 317 * Support for the MIPS32, by Anders Norlander.
 318
 319 * Support for the i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 320
 321 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 322
 323 Changes in binutils 2.10:
 324
 325 * Support for 64-bit ELF on HPPA.
 326
 327 * New command line switch to objdump --file-start-context which shows the
 328   entire file contents up to the source line first encountered for a given
 329   file.
 330
 331 * New command line switch to objdump -M (or --disassembler-options) which takes
 332   a parameter which can then be interpreted on a per-target basis by the
 333   disassembler.  Used by ARM targets to select register name sets, ISA, APCS or
 334   raw verions.
 335
 336 * objdump support for -mi386:intel which causes disassembly to be displayed
 337   with intel syntax.
 338
 339 * New program: readelf.  This displays the contents of ELF format files,
 340   regardless of target machine.
 341
 342 * objcopy now takes --change-section-lma, --change-section-vma, and
 343   --change-section-address options.  The old --adjust-section-vma option is
 344   equivalent to --change-section-address.  The other --adjust-* options are now
 345   renamed to --change-*, although --adjust-* continues to work.
 346
 347 * objcopy has a --redefine-sym option that lets you rename symbols.
 348
 349 * objcopy now takes a -j/--only-section option to copy only the specified
 350   sections.
 351
 352 * dlltool now supports the IMPORTS command.
 353
 354 * dlltool now takes --export-all-symbols, --no-export-all-symbols,
 355   --exclude-symbols, and --no-default-excludes options.
 356
 357 Changes in binutils 2.9:
 358
 359 * Added windres program, which can be used to manipulate resources in WIN32
 360   files as used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
 361
 362 * The objcopy --gap-fill and --pad-to options operate on the LMA rather than
 363   the VMA of the sections.
 364
 365 * Added S modifier to ar to not build a symbol table.
 366
 367 Changes in binutils 2.8:
 368
 369 * The objdump disassembly format has been changed, and hopefully improved.  Use
 370   the new --prefix-addresses option to get the old format.  There are also new
 371   --disassemble-zeroes and --no-show-raw-insn options which affect disassembler
 372   output.
 373
 374 * Formats may now be specified as configuration triplets.  For example,
 375   objdump -b i386-pc-linux.  The triplets are not passed through config.sub,
 376   so they must be in canonical form.
 377
 378 * Added new addr2line program.  This uses the debugging information to convert
 379   an address into a file name and line number within a program.
 380
 381 * Added --change-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 382
 383 * Added --weaken argument to objcopy.
 384
 385 * objdump --dynamic-reloc now works on ELF executables and shared libraries.
 386
 387 * Added --adjust-vma option to objdump.
 388
 389 * Added -C/--demangle option to objdump.
 390
 391 * Added -p/--preserve-dates option to strip and objcopy.
 392
 393 Changes in binutils 2.7:
 394
 395 * Added --enable-shared and --enable-commonbfdlib options to configure.
 396
 397 * Added --debugging argument to objdump and objcopy.
 398
 399 * Added --defined-only argument to nm.
 400
 401 * Added --remove-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 402
 403 * The objdump --line-numbers option is now meaningful with --reloc.
 404
 405 * Added --line-numbers option to nm.
 406
 407 * Added --endian/-EB/-EL option to objdump.
 408
 409 * Added support for Alpha OpenVMS/AXP.
 410
 411 Changes in binutils 2.6:
 412
 413 * Added -N/--strip-symbol and -K/--keep-symbol arguments to strip and objcopy.
 414
 415 * Added several arguments to objcopy to provide some control over how the new
 416   file is laid out in memory.  Also added binary output format to BFD to permit
 417   generating plain binary files.
 418
 419 * Added --start-address and --stop-address options to objdump.
 420
 421 * ar and ranlib now work on AIX.  The tools are now built by default on AIX.
 422
 423 Changes in binutils 2.5:
 424
 425 * Changed objdump -dr to dump the relocs interspersed with the assembly
 426   listing, for a more useful listing of relocatable files.
 427
 428 * Changed objdump -d/--disassemble to only disassemble SEC_CODE sections.
 429   Added -D/--disassemble-all option to disassemble all sections.
 430
 431 * Added --size-sort option to nm.
 432
 433 * strip and objcopy should now be able to handle dynamically linked ELF
 434   executables.
 435
 436 Changes in binutils 2.4:
 437
 438 * Support for HP-PA (by Jeff Law), i386 Mach (by David Mackenzie), RS/6000 and
 439   PowerPC (except ar and ranlib; by Ian Taylor).
 440
 441 * Support for Irix 5.
 442
 443 * Programs `strip' and `objcopy' will not attempt to write dynamically linked
 444   ELF output files, since BFD currently can't create them properly.
 445
 446 Changes in binutils 2.3:
 447
 448 * A new --stabs argument has been added to objdump to dump stabs sections in
 449   ELF and COFF files.
 450
 451 * A new program, nlmconv, has been added.  It can convert object files into
 452   Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
 453
 454 * The strings program has been added.
 455
 456 Changes in binutils 2.2:
 457
 458 * The 'copy' program has been renamed to 'objcopy', for consistency with
 459   'objdump', and because 'copy' might more plausibly be used as a synonym for
 460   'cp'.
 461
 462 * The new stand-alone program c++filt is a filter that converts encoded
 463   (mangled) C++ assembly-level identifiers to user-level names.  (Note: This
 464   may get moved to the gcc distribution.)
 465
 466 * nm -o on an archive now prefixes each line with the archive name, matching
 467   the output from BSD nm.
 468
 469 * ar (and ld) can now read (but not write) BSD4.4-style archives.
 470
 471 * New support for H8500, Z8000, and the Hitach SH.
 472
 473 * Dis-assembler interface changed to allow sharing with gdb.
 474
 475 * There is new Elf code, but it is not yet ready for general use.
 476
 477 * There is the beginnings of a test suite.
 478
 479 Changes in binutils 2.1:
 480
 481 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the other utilities
 482   should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.  Please let us know how well this works.
 483
 484 * ar now automatically creates a symbol table (a __.SYMDEF member, in the BSD
 485   version), if there are any object files in the archive.  So running ranlib is
 486   now redundant (unless the non-standard q command is used).  This is required
 487   for Posix.2 conformance.
 488
 489 * The archive-reading code now reads both BSD-style and SYSV-style archives
 490   independently of the selected target format.  This is to encourage people to
 491   switch to SYSV-format, which has a number of advantages.
 492
 493 * The strip and copy programs now have options to remove debug-symbols only
 494   and/or local symbols only.  They now also support long options.
 495
 496 \f
 497 Copyright (C) 2012-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 498
 499 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 500 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 501 notice and this notice are preserved.
 502
 503 Local variables:
 504 fill-column: 79
 505 End: