binutils/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * The MIPS port now supports the Imagination interAptiv MR2 processor,
   4   which implements the MIPS32r3 ISA, the MIPS16e2 ASE as well as a couple
   5   of implementation-specific regular MIPS and MIPS16e2 ASE instructions.
   6
   7 * The SPARC port now supports the SPARC M8 processor, which implements the
   8   Oracle SPARC Architecture 2017.
   9
  10 * The MIPS port now supports the MIPS16e2 ASE for assembly and disassembly.
  11
  12 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX.
  13
  14 * Add support for the wasm32 ELF conversion of the WebAssembly file format.
  15
  16 * Add --inlines option to objdump, which extends the --line-numbers option
  17   so that inlined functions will display their nesting information.
  18
  19 * Add --merge-notes options to objcopy to reduce the size of notes in
  20   a binary file by merging and deleting redundant notes.
  21
  22 * Add support for locating separate debug info files using the build-id
  23   method, where the separate file has a name based upon the build-id of
  24   the original file.
  25
  26 Changes in 2.28:
  27
  28 * This version of binutils fixes a problem with PowerPC VLE 16A and 16D
  29   relocations which were functionally swapped, for example,
  30   R_PPC_VLE_HA16A performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16D while R_PPC_VLE_HA16D
  31   performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16A.  This could have been fixed by
  32   renumbering relocations, which would keep object files created by an
  33   older version of gas compatible with a newer ld.  However, that would
  34   require an ABI update, affecting other assemblers and linkers that
  35   create and process the relocations correctly.  It is recommended that
  36   all VLE object files be recompiled, but ld can modify the relocations
  37   if --vle-reloc-fixup is passed to ld.  If the new ld command line
  38   option is not used, ld will ld warn on finding relocations inconsistent
  39   with the instructions being relocated.
  40
  41 * The nm program has a new command line option (--with-version-strings)
  42   which will display a symbol's version information, if any, after the
  43   symbol's name.
  44
  45 * The ARC port of objdump now accepts a -M option to specify the extra
  46   instruction class(es) that should be disassembled.
  47
  48 * The --remove-section option for objcopy and strip now accepts section
  49   patterns starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching
  50   section.  A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections
  51   matched by an earlier --remove-section pattern.
  52
  53 * The --only-section option for objcopy now accepts section patterns
  54   starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching section.
  55   A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections matched by
  56   an earlier --only-section pattern.
  57
  58 * New --remove-relocations=SECTIONPATTERN option for objcopy and strip.
  59   This option can be used to remove sections containing relocations.
  60   The SECTIONPATTERN is the section to which the relocations apply, not
  61   the relocation section itself.
  62
  63 Changes in 2.27:
  64
  65 * Add a configure option, --enable-64-bit-archive, to force use of a
  66   64-bit format when creating an archive symbol index.
  67
  68 * Add --elf-stt-common= option to objcopy for ELF targets to control
  69   whether to convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type.
  70
  71 Changes in 2.26:
  72
  73 * Add option to objcopy to insert new symbols into a file:
  74   --add-symbol <name>=[<section>:]<value>[,<flags>]
  75
  76 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
  77
  78 * Extend objcopy --compress-debug-sections option to support
  79   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
  80   targets.
  81
  82 * Add --update-section option to objcopy.
  83
  84 * Add --output-separator option to strings.
  85
  86 Changes in 2.25:
  87
  88 * Add --data option to strings to only print strings in loadable, initialized
  89   data sections.  Change the default behaviour to be --all, but add a new
  90   configure time option of --disable-default-strings-all to restore the old
  91   default behaviour.
  92
  93 * Add --include-all-whitespace to strings.
  94
  95 * Add --dump-section option to objcopy.
  96
  97 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
  98
  99 Changes in 2.24:
 100
 101 * Objcopy now supports wildcard characters in command line options that take
 102   section names.
 103
 104 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 105
 106 Changes in 2.23:
 107
 108 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 109
 110 * Add support for x64 Windows target of the delayed-load-library.
 111
 112 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 113
 114 Changes in 2.22:
 115
 116 * Add support for displaying the contents of .debug.macro sections.
 117
 118 * Add --preprocessor-arg option to windres to specify additional options
 119   passed to preprocessor.
 120
 121 * Add --dwarf-start and --dwarf-end to readelf and objdump.  These are used by
 122   the new Emacs mode, see dwarf-mode.el.
 123
 124 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 125
 126 changes in 2.21:
 127
 128 * Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of
 129   bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
 130
 131 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 132
 133 * Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using
 134   the -u / --unwind option.
 135
 136 * Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
 137
 138 * A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format
 139   binaries.
 140
 141 * Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by
 142   '== <ID>' option.
 143
 144 * Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the
 145   address before function name or source filename.
 146
 147 * Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have
 148   a more human readable output.
 149
 150 * The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
 151
 152 Changes in 2.20:
 153
 154 * Add support for delay importing to dlltool.  Use the --output-delaylib <file>
 155   switch to create a delay-import library.  The resulting app will load the dll
 156   as soon as the first function is called.  It will link to __delayLoadHelper2()
 157   from the static delayimp library, which will import LoadLibraryA and
 158   GetProcAddress from kernel32.
 159
 160 * Add a new command line option, --insn-width=WIDTH, to objdump to specify
 161   number of bytes to be displayed on a single line when disassembling
 162   instructions.
 163
 164 * Readelf can now display the relocated contents of a section as a sequence
 165   of bytes via the --relocated-dump=<name|number> command line option.
 166
 167 * The gprof program has been given a new command line option:
 168   --external-symbols-table=<filename> which reads in symbols from a specified
 169   file.
 170
 171 * The plugin target has been added to bfd. It can load the same shared objects
 172   used by gold and uses them to provide basic support for new file formats.
 173
 174 * The verilog memory hex dump file format is now supported as an output format
 175   for objcopy.
 176
 177 * Add --file-alignment, --heap, --image-base, --section-alignment,
 178   --stack and --subsystem command line options to objcopy, which will
 179   set PE optional header.
 180
 181 * Option --dwarf/-W of objdump is now as flexible as readelf --debug-dump/-w.
 182
 183 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 184   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 185   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 186   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 187
 188 * Added --prefix=PREFIX and --prefix-strip=LEVEL switches to objdump to
 189   add absolute paths for -S.
 190
 191 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to dlltool to allow fall-
 192   back to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 193
 194 * Added --identify-strict switch to cause --identify <implib> to
 195   report an error when the import library is associated with
 196   multiple DLLs.
 197
 198 * Added --identify <implib> option to dlltool, which determines the
 199   name of the DLL associated with the specified <implib>.
 200
 201 * Support for PowerPC booke64 instructions has been removed.  The assembler no
 202   longer accepts -mbooke32 or -mbooke64 and the disassembler no longer accepts
 203   -Mbooke32 or -Mbooke64.  Instead, -mbooke and -Mbooke should be used.
 204
 205 Changes in 2.19:
 206
 207 * Added -wL switch to dump decoded contents of .debug_line.
 208
 209 * Added support for "thin" archives which contain pathnames pointing to
 210   object files rather than the files themselves and which contain a
 211   flattened symbol index for all objects, and archives, which have been
 212   added to the archive.
 213
 214 * Added -F switch to objdump to include file offsets in the disassembly.
 215
 216 * Added -c switch to readelf to allow string dumps of archive symbol index.
 217
 218 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 219
 220 * Added -p switch to readelf to allow string dumps of sections.
 221
 222 Changes in 2.18:
 223
 224 * Resolved 37 coding problems in bfd including static array overruns, null
 225   pointer dereferences and use of a malloc buffer after it has been freed, as
 226   revealed by static analysis donated by Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
 227
 228 * The binutils sources are now released under version 3 of the GNU General
 229   Public License.
 230
 231 * A new tool "windmc" has been added for some targets.  This is a message
 232   compiler which attempts to be compatible with the MS version.
 233
 234 * Add codepage support to the windres tool.  It now supports many new
 235   resource types (e.g. MANIFEST, TOOLBAR, etc).  The output generation
 236   for binary files is done now via bfd itself.  The endianess problems
 237   for different hosts are solved.  Dumps of .res files can now be
 238   re-compiled by windres without lossing resources or compilation errors.
 239   Some problems on dialog resource translations are corrected.
 240
 241 * Add --extract-symbol command line option to objcopy, which will
 242   strip everything out of an ordinary object file or executable except
 243   for its symbol table.  Files containing just symbols can be useful
 244   to some OSes.
 245
 246 Changes in 2.17:
 247
 248 * Add "-x NAME" to readelf in addition to "-x NUMBER".
 249
 250 * Add -i and -t switches to cxxfilt.  -i disables the display of implementation
 251   specific extra demangling information (if any) and -t disables the demangling
 252   of types.
 253
 254 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command lines of all tools, so
 255   that extra switches can be read from <file>.
 256
 257 * Add "-W/--dwarf" to objdump to display the contents of the DWARF
 258   debug sections.
 259
 260 * Add "-t/--section-details" to readelf to display section details.
 261   "-N/--full-section-name" is deprecated.
 262
 263 * powerpc-linux ld now supports a variant form of PLT and GOT for the security
 264   conscious.  This form will automatically be chosen when ld detects that all
 265   code in regular object files was generated by gcc -msecure-plt.  The old PLT
 266   and GOT may be forced by a new ld option, --bss-plt.
 267
 268 * Add "-i/--inlines" to addr2line to print enclosing scope information
 269   for inlined function chains, back to first non-inlined function.
 270
 271 * Add "-N/--full-section-name" to readelf to display full section name.
 272
 273 * Add "-M entry:<addr>" switch to objdump to specify a function entry address
 274   when disassembling VAX binaries.
 275
 276 * Add "--globalize-symbol <name>" and "--globalize-symbols <filename>" switches
 277   to objcopy to convert local symbols into global symbols.
 278
 279 * gprof now allows input files to have histogram records for
 280   several memory ranges, provided those ranges are disjoint.
 281
 282 Changes in 2.16:
 283
 284 * Add "-g/--section-groups" to readelf to display section groups.
 285
 286 * objcopy recognizes two new options --strip-unneeded-symbol and
 287   --strip-unneeded-symbols, namely for use together with the wildcard
 288   matching the original --strip-symbol/--strip-symbols provided, but
 289   retaining any symbols matching but needed by relocations.
 290
 291 * readelf can now display address ranges from .debug_range sections.  This
 292   happens automatically when a DW_AT_range attribute is encountered.  The
 293   command line switch --debug-dump=Ranges (or -wR) can also be used to display
 294   the contents of the .debug_range section.
 295
 296 * nm and objdump now have a switch "--special-syms" to enable the displaying of
 297   symbols which the target considers to be special.  By default these symbols
 298   are no longer displayed.  Currently the only special symbols are the Mapping
 299   symbols used by the ARM port to mark transitions between text and data and
 300   between ARM and THUMB code.
 301
 302 * dlltool has a switch "--ext-prefix-alias <prefix>" to generate additional
 303   import and export symbols with <preifx> prepended to them.
 304
 305 Changes in 2.15:
 306
 307 * objcopy for MIPS targets now accepts "-M no-aliases" as an option to the
 308   disassembler to print the "raw" mips instruction mnemonic instead of some
 309   pseudo instruction name.  I.E. print "daddu" or "or" instead of "move",
 310   "sll" instead of "nop", etc.
 311
 312 * objcopy and strip can now take wildcard patterns in symbol names specified on
 313   the command line provided that the --wildcard switch is used to enable them.
 314
 315 * readelf can now parse archives.
 316
 317 * objdump now accepts --debugging-tags to print the debug information in a
 318   format compatible with ctags tool.
 319
 320 * objcopy and strip now accept --only-keep-debug to create a file containing
 321   those sections that would be stripped out by --strip-debug.  The idea is that
 322   this can be used in conjunction with the --add-gnu-debuglink switch to create
 323   a two part program distribution - one a stripped executable and the other the
 324   debugging info.
 325
 326 * objcopy now accepts --add-gnu-debuglink=<file> to insert a .gnu_debuglink
 327   section into a (presumably stripped) executable.  This allows the debug
 328   information for the file to be held in a separate file.
 329
 330 * BFD marks the sections .comment and .note as 'n' in the BSD/POSIX
 331   single-character representation.  This can be checked by running nm
 332   with the -a switch.
 333
 334 Changes in 2.14:
 335
 336 * Added --info switch to objcopy and strip.
 337
 338 * Support for Vitesse IQ2000 added by Red Hat.
 339
 340 * Added 'S' encoding to strings to allow the display of 8-bit characters.
 341
 342 * Added --prefix-symbols=<text>, --prefix-sections=<text> and
 343   --prefix-alloc-sections=<text> to objcopy.
 344
 345 * readelf can handle the extensions to the DWARF2 spec used by the Unified
 346   Parallel C compiler.
 347
 348 * BFD no longer declares a "boolean" type, to avoid clashes with other
 349   headers that declare the same.  Users of BFD should replace boolean,
 350   false and true, with int, 0 and 1, or define their own boolean type.
 351
 352 * Support for IP2K added by Denis Chertykov.
 353
 354 Changes in 2.13:
 355
 356 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 357   and FR500 included.
 358
 359 Changes in version 2.12:
 360
 361 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 362
 363 * size: Add --totals to display summary of sizes (Berkeley format only).
 364
 365 * readelf: Add --wide option to not break section header or segment listing
 366   lines to fit into 80 columns.
 367
 368 * strings: Add --encoding to display wide character strings.  By Markus Kuhn.
 369
 370 * objcopy: Add --rename-section to change section names.
 371
 372 * readelf: Support added for DWARF 2.1 extensions.  Support added for
 373   displaying the contents of .debug.macinfo sections.
 374
 375 * New command line switches added to objcopy to allow symbols to be kept as
 376   global symbols, and also to specify files containing lists of such symbols.
 377   by Honda Hiroki.
 378
 379 * Support for OpenRISC by Johan Rydberg.
 380
 381 * New command line switch to objcopy --alt-machine-code which creates a binary
 382   with an alternate machine code if one is defined in the architecture
 383   description.  Only supported for ELF targets.  By Alexandre Oliva.
 384
 385 * New command line switch to objcopy -B (or --binary-architecture) which sets
 386   the architecture of the output file to the given argument.  This option only
 387   makes sense, if the input target is binary.  Otherwise it is ignored.
 388   By Stefan Geuken.
 389
 390 * Support for PDP-11 by Lars Brinkhoff.
 391
 392 Changes in binutils 2.11:
 393
 394 * Add support for ARM v5t and v5te architectures and Intel's XScale ARM
 395   extenstions.
 396
 397 * Add --srec-len and --srec-forceS3 command line switch to objcopy.
 398   By Luciano Gemme.
 399
 400 * Support for the MIPS32, by Anders Norlander.
 401
 402 * Support for the i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 403
 404 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 405
 406 Changes in binutils 2.10:
 407
 408 * Support for 64-bit ELF on HPPA.
 409
 410 * New command line switch to objdump --file-start-context which shows the
 411   entire file contents up to the source line first encountered for a given
 412   file.
 413
 414 * New command line switch to objdump -M (or --disassembler-options) which takes
 415   a parameter which can then be interpreted on a per-target basis by the
 416   disassembler.  Used by ARM targets to select register name sets, ISA, APCS or
 417   raw verions.
 418
 419 * objdump support for -mi386:intel which causes disassembly to be displayed
 420   with intel syntax.
 421
 422 * New program: readelf.  This displays the contents of ELF format files,
 423   regardless of target machine.
 424
 425 * objcopy now takes --change-section-lma, --change-section-vma, and
 426   --change-section-address options.  The old --adjust-section-vma option is
 427   equivalent to --change-section-address.  The other --adjust-* options are now
 428   renamed to --change-*, although --adjust-* continues to work.
 429
 430 * objcopy has a --redefine-sym option that lets you rename symbols.
 431
 432 * objcopy now takes a -j/--only-section option to copy only the specified
 433   sections.
 434
 435 * dlltool now supports the IMPORTS command.
 436
 437 * dlltool now takes --export-all-symbols, --no-export-all-symbols,
 438   --exclude-symbols, and --no-default-excludes options.
 439
 440 Changes in binutils 2.9:
 441
 442 * Added windres program, which can be used to manipulate resources in WIN32
 443   files as used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
 444
 445 * The objcopy --gap-fill and --pad-to options operate on the LMA rather than
 446   the VMA of the sections.
 447
 448 * Added S modifier to ar to not build a symbol table.
 449
 450 Changes in binutils 2.8:
 451
 452 * The objdump disassembly format has been changed, and hopefully improved.  Use
 453   the new --prefix-addresses option to get the old format.  There are also new
 454   --disassemble-zeroes and --no-show-raw-insn options which affect disassembler
 455   output.
 456
 457 * Formats may now be specified as configuration triplets.  For example,
 458   objdump -b i386-pc-linux.  The triplets are not passed through config.sub,
 459   so they must be in canonical form.
 460
 461 * Added new addr2line program.  This uses the debugging information to convert
 462   an address into a file name and line number within a program.
 463
 464 * Added --change-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 465
 466 * Added --weaken argument to objcopy.
 467
 468 * objdump --dynamic-reloc now works on ELF executables and shared libraries.
 469
 470 * Added --adjust-vma option to objdump.
 471
 472 * Added -C/--demangle option to objdump.
 473
 474 * Added -p/--preserve-dates option to strip and objcopy.
 475
 476 Changes in binutils 2.7:
 477
 478 * Added --enable-shared and --enable-commonbfdlib options to configure.
 479
 480 * Added --debugging argument to objdump and objcopy.
 481
 482 * Added --defined-only argument to nm.
 483
 484 * Added --remove-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 485
 486 * The objdump --line-numbers option is now meaningful with --reloc.
 487
 488 * Added --line-numbers option to nm.
 489
 490 * Added --endian/-EB/-EL option to objdump.
 491
 492 * Added support for Alpha OpenVMS/AXP.
 493
 494 Changes in binutils 2.6:
 495
 496 * Added -N/--strip-symbol and -K/--keep-symbol arguments to strip and objcopy.
 497
 498 * Added several arguments to objcopy to provide some control over how the new
 499   file is laid out in memory.  Also added binary output format to BFD to permit
 500   generating plain binary files.
 501
 502 * Added --start-address and --stop-address options to objdump.
 503
 504 * ar and ranlib now work on AIX.  The tools are now built by default on AIX.
 505
 506 Changes in binutils 2.5:
 507
 508 * Changed objdump -dr to dump the relocs interspersed with the assembly
 509   listing, for a more useful listing of relocatable files.
 510
 511 * Changed objdump -d/--disassemble to only disassemble SEC_CODE sections.
 512   Added -D/--disassemble-all option to disassemble all sections.
 513
 514 * Added --size-sort option to nm.
 515
 516 * strip and objcopy should now be able to handle dynamically linked ELF
 517   executables.
 518
 519 Changes in binutils 2.4:
 520
 521 * Support for HP-PA (by Jeff Law), i386 Mach (by David Mackenzie), RS/6000 and
 522   PowerPC (except ar and ranlib; by Ian Taylor).
 523
 524 * Support for Irix 5.
 525
 526 * Programs `strip' and `objcopy' will not attempt to write dynamically linked
 527   ELF output files, since BFD currently can't create them properly.
 528
 529 Changes in binutils 2.3:
 530
 531 * A new --stabs argument has been added to objdump to dump stabs sections in
 532   ELF and COFF files.
 533
 534 * A new program, nlmconv, has been added.  It can convert object files into
 535   Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
 536
 537 * The strings program has been added.
 538
 539 Changes in binutils 2.2:
 540
 541 * The 'copy' program has been renamed to 'objcopy', for consistency with
 542   'objdump', and because 'copy' might more plausibly be used as a synonym for
 543   'cp'.
 544
 545 * The new stand-alone program c++filt is a filter that converts encoded
 546   (mangled) C++ assembly-level identifiers to user-level names.  (Note: This
 547   may get moved to the gcc distribution.)
 548
 549 * nm -o on an archive now prefixes each line with the archive name, matching
 550   the output from BSD nm.
 551
 552 * ar (and ld) can now read (but not write) BSD4.4-style archives.
 553
 554 * New support for H8500, Z8000, and the Hitach SH.
 555
 556 * Dis-assembler interface changed to allow sharing with gdb.
 557
 558 * There is new Elf code, but it is not yet ready for general use.
 559
 560 * There is the beginnings of a test suite.
 561
 562 Changes in binutils 2.1:
 563
 564 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the other utilities
 565   should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.  Please let us know how well this works.
 566
 567 * ar now automatically creates a symbol table (a __.SYMDEF member, in the BSD
 568   version), if there are any object files in the archive.  So running ranlib is
 569   now redundant (unless the non-standard q command is used).  This is required
 570   for Posix.2 conformance.
 571
 572 * The archive-reading code now reads both BSD-style and SYSV-style archives
 573   independently of the selected target format.  This is to encourage people to
 574   switch to SYSV-format, which has a number of advantages.
 575
 576 * The strip and copy programs now have options to remove debug-symbols only
 577   and/or local symbols only.  They now also support long options.
 578
 579 \f
 580 Copyright (C) 2012-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 581
 582 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 583 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 584 notice and this notice are preserved.
 585
 586 Local variables:
 587 fill-column: 79
 588 End: