binutils/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for disassembling netronome Flow Processor (NFP) firmware files.
   4
   5 * The AArch64 port now supports showing disassembly notes which are emitted
   6   when inconsistencies are found with the instruction that may result in the
   7   instruction being invalid.  These can be turned on with the option -M notes
   8   to objdump.
   9
  10 * The AArch64 port now emits warnings when a combination of an instruction and
  11   a named register could be invalid.
  12
  13 Changes in 2.30:
  14
  15 * Add --debug-dump=links option to readelf and --dwarf=links option to objdump
  16   which displays the contents of any .gnu_debuglink or .gnu_debugaltlink
  17   sections.
  18
  19   Add a --debug-dump=follow-links option to readelf and a --dwarf=follow-links
  20   option to objdump which causes indirect links into separate debug info files
  21   to be followed when dumping other DWARF sections.
  22
  23 Changes in 2.29:
  24
  25 * The MIPS port now supports microMIPS eXtended Physical Addressing (XPA)
  26   instructions for assembly and disassembly.
  27
  28 * The MIPS port now supports the microMIPS Release 5 ISA for assembly and
  29   disassembly.
  30
  31 * The MIPS port now supports the Imagination interAptiv MR2 processor,
  32   which implements the MIPS32r3 ISA, the MIPS16e2 ASE as well as a couple
  33   of implementation-specific regular MIPS and MIPS16e2 ASE instructions.
  34
  35 * The SPARC port now supports the SPARC M8 processor, which implements the
  36   Oracle SPARC Architecture 2017.
  37
  38 * The MIPS port now supports the MIPS16e2 ASE for assembly and disassembly.
  39
  40 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX.
  41
  42 * Add support for the wasm32 ELF conversion of the WebAssembly file format.
  43
  44 * Add --inlines option to objdump, which extends the --line-numbers option
  45   so that inlined functions will display their nesting information.
  46
  47 * Add --merge-notes options to objcopy to reduce the size of notes in
  48   a binary file by merging and deleting redundant notes.
  49
  50 * Add support for locating separate debug info files using the build-id
  51   method, where the separate file has a name based upon the build-id of
  52   the original file.
  53
  54 Changes in 2.28:
  55
  56 * This version of binutils fixes a problem with PowerPC VLE 16A and 16D
  57   relocations which were functionally swapped, for example,
  58   R_PPC_VLE_HA16A performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16D while R_PPC_VLE_HA16D
  59   performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16A.  This could have been fixed by
  60   renumbering relocations, which would keep object files created by an
  61   older version of gas compatible with a newer ld.  However, that would
  62   require an ABI update, affecting other assemblers and linkers that
  63   create and process the relocations correctly.  It is recommended that
  64   all VLE object files be recompiled, but ld can modify the relocations
  65   if --vle-reloc-fixup is passed to ld.  If the new ld command line
  66   option is not used, ld will ld warn on finding relocations inconsistent
  67   with the instructions being relocated.
  68
  69 * The nm program has a new command line option (--with-version-strings)
  70   which will display a symbol's version information, if any, after the
  71   symbol's name.
  72
  73 * The ARC port of objdump now accepts a -M option to specify the extra
  74   instruction class(es) that should be disassembled.
  75
  76 * The --remove-section option for objcopy and strip now accepts section
  77   patterns starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching
  78   section.  A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections
  79   matched by an earlier --remove-section pattern.
  80
  81 * The --only-section option for objcopy now accepts section patterns
  82   starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching section.
  83   A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections matched by
  84   an earlier --only-section pattern.
  85
  86 * New --remove-relocations=SECTIONPATTERN option for objcopy and strip.
  87   This option can be used to remove sections containing relocations.
  88   The SECTIONPATTERN is the section to which the relocations apply, not
  89   the relocation section itself.
  90
  91 Changes in 2.27:
  92
  93 * Add a configure option, --enable-64-bit-archive, to force use of a
  94   64-bit format when creating an archive symbol index.
  95
  96 * Add --elf-stt-common= option to objcopy for ELF targets to control
  97   whether to convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type.
  98
  99 Changes in 2.26:
 100
 101 * Add option to objcopy to insert new symbols into a file:
 102   --add-symbol <name>=[<section>:]<value>[,<flags>]
 103
 104 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
 105
 106 * Extend objcopy --compress-debug-sections option to support
 107   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 108   targets.
 109
 110 * Add --update-section option to objcopy.
 111
 112 * Add --output-separator option to strings.
 113
 114 Changes in 2.25:
 115
 116 * Add --data option to strings to only print strings in loadable, initialized
 117   data sections.  Change the default behaviour to be --all, but add a new
 118   configure time option of --disable-default-strings-all to restore the old
 119   default behaviour.
 120
 121 * Add --include-all-whitespace to strings.
 122
 123 * Add --dump-section option to objcopy.
 124
 125 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 126
 127 Changes in 2.24:
 128
 129 * Objcopy now supports wildcard characters in command line options that take
 130   section names.
 131
 132 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 133
 134 Changes in 2.23:
 135
 136 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 137
 138 * Add support for x64 Windows target of the delayed-load-library.
 139
 140 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 141
 142 Changes in 2.22:
 143
 144 * Add support for displaying the contents of .debug.macro sections.
 145
 146 * Add --preprocessor-arg option to windres to specify additional options
 147   passed to preprocessor.
 148
 149 * Add --dwarf-start and --dwarf-end to readelf and objdump.  These are used by
 150   the new Emacs mode, see dwarf-mode.el.
 151
 152 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 153
 154 changes in 2.21:
 155
 156 * Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of
 157   bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
 158
 159 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 160
 161 * Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using
 162   the -u / --unwind option.
 163
 164 * Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
 165
 166 * A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format
 167   binaries.
 168
 169 * Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by
 170   '== <ID>' option.
 171
 172 * Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the
 173   address before function name or source filename.
 174
 175 * Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have
 176   a more human readable output.
 177
 178 * The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
 179
 180 Changes in 2.20:
 181
 182 * Add support for delay importing to dlltool.  Use the --output-delaylib <file>
 183   switch to create a delay-import library.  The resulting app will load the dll
 184   as soon as the first function is called.  It will link to __delayLoadHelper2()
 185   from the static delayimp library, which will import LoadLibraryA and
 186   GetProcAddress from kernel32.
 187
 188 * Add a new command line option, --insn-width=WIDTH, to objdump to specify
 189   number of bytes to be displayed on a single line when disassembling
 190   instructions.
 191
 192 * Readelf can now display the relocated contents of a section as a sequence
 193   of bytes via the --relocated-dump=<name|number> command line option.
 194
 195 * The gprof program has been given a new command line option:
 196   --external-symbols-table=<filename> which reads in symbols from a specified
 197   file.
 198
 199 * The plugin target has been added to bfd. It can load the same shared objects
 200   used by gold and uses them to provide basic support for new file formats.
 201
 202 * The verilog memory hex dump file format is now supported as an output format
 203   for objcopy.
 204
 205 * Add --file-alignment, --heap, --image-base, --section-alignment,
 206   --stack and --subsystem command line options to objcopy, which will
 207   set PE optional header.
 208
 209 * Option --dwarf/-W of objdump is now as flexible as readelf --debug-dump/-w.
 210
 211 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 212   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 213   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 214   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 215
 216 * Added --prefix=PREFIX and --prefix-strip=LEVEL switches to objdump to
 217   add absolute paths for -S.
 218
 219 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to dlltool to allow fall-
 220   back to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 221
 222 * Added --identify-strict switch to cause --identify <implib> to
 223   report an error when the import library is associated with
 224   multiple DLLs.
 225
 226 * Added --identify <implib> option to dlltool, which determines the
 227   name of the DLL associated with the specified <implib>.
 228
 229 * Support for PowerPC booke64 instructions has been removed.  The assembler no
 230   longer accepts -mbooke32 or -mbooke64 and the disassembler no longer accepts
 231   -Mbooke32 or -Mbooke64.  Instead, -mbooke and -Mbooke should be used.
 232
 233 Changes in 2.19:
 234
 235 * Added -wL switch to dump decoded contents of .debug_line.
 236
 237 * Added support for "thin" archives which contain pathnames pointing to
 238   object files rather than the files themselves and which contain a
 239   flattened symbol index for all objects, and archives, which have been
 240   added to the archive.
 241
 242 * Added -F switch to objdump to include file offsets in the disassembly.
 243
 244 * Added -c switch to readelf to allow string dumps of archive symbol index.
 245
 246 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 247
 248 * Added -p switch to readelf to allow string dumps of sections.
 249
 250 Changes in 2.18:
 251
 252 * Resolved 37 coding problems in bfd including static array overruns, null
 253   pointer dereferences and use of a malloc buffer after it has been freed, as
 254   revealed by static analysis donated by Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
 255
 256 * The binutils sources are now released under version 3 of the GNU General
 257   Public License.
 258
 259 * A new tool "windmc" has been added for some targets.  This is a message
 260   compiler which attempts to be compatible with the MS version.
 261
 262 * Add codepage support to the windres tool.  It now supports many new
 263   resource types (e.g. MANIFEST, TOOLBAR, etc).  The output generation
 264   for binary files is done now via bfd itself.  The endianess problems
 265   for different hosts are solved.  Dumps of .res files can now be
 266   re-compiled by windres without lossing resources or compilation errors.
 267   Some problems on dialog resource translations are corrected.
 268
 269 * Add --extract-symbol command line option to objcopy, which will
 270   strip everything out of an ordinary object file or executable except
 271   for its symbol table.  Files containing just symbols can be useful
 272   to some OSes.
 273
 274 Changes in 2.17:
 275
 276 * Add "-x NAME" to readelf in addition to "-x NUMBER".
 277
 278 * Add -i and -t switches to cxxfilt.  -i disables the display of implementation
 279   specific extra demangling information (if any) and -t disables the demangling
 280   of types.
 281
 282 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command lines of all tools, so
 283   that extra switches can be read from <file>.
 284
 285 * Add "-W/--dwarf" to objdump to display the contents of the DWARF
 286   debug sections.
 287
 288 * Add "-t/--section-details" to readelf to display section details.
 289   "-N/--full-section-name" is deprecated.
 290
 291 * powerpc-linux ld now supports a variant form of PLT and GOT for the security
 292   conscious.  This form will automatically be chosen when ld detects that all
 293   code in regular object files was generated by gcc -msecure-plt.  The old PLT
 294   and GOT may be forced by a new ld option, --bss-plt.
 295
 296 * Add "-i/--inlines" to addr2line to print enclosing scope information
 297   for inlined function chains, back to first non-inlined function.
 298
 299 * Add "-N/--full-section-name" to readelf to display full section name.
 300
 301 * Add "-M entry:<addr>" switch to objdump to specify a function entry address
 302   when disassembling VAX binaries.
 303
 304 * Add "--globalize-symbol <name>" and "--globalize-symbols <filename>" switches
 305   to objcopy to convert local symbols into global symbols.
 306
 307 * gprof now allows input files to have histogram records for
 308   several memory ranges, provided those ranges are disjoint.
 309
 310 Changes in 2.16:
 311
 312 * Add "-g/--section-groups" to readelf to display section groups.
 313
 314 * objcopy recognizes two new options --strip-unneeded-symbol and
 315   --strip-unneeded-symbols, namely for use together with the wildcard
 316   matching the original --strip-symbol/--strip-symbols provided, but
 317   retaining any symbols matching but needed by relocations.
 318
 319 * readelf can now display address ranges from .debug_range sections.  This
 320   happens automatically when a DW_AT_range attribute is encountered.  The
 321   command line switch --debug-dump=Ranges (or -wR) can also be used to display
 322   the contents of the .debug_range section.
 323
 324 * nm and objdump now have a switch "--special-syms" to enable the displaying of
 325   symbols which the target considers to be special.  By default these symbols
 326   are no longer displayed.  Currently the only special symbols are the Mapping
 327   symbols used by the ARM port to mark transitions between text and data and
 328   between ARM and THUMB code.
 329
 330 * dlltool has a switch "--ext-prefix-alias <prefix>" to generate additional
 331   import and export symbols with <preifx> prepended to them.
 332
 333 Changes in 2.15:
 334
 335 * objcopy for MIPS targets now accepts "-M no-aliases" as an option to the
 336   disassembler to print the "raw" mips instruction mnemonic instead of some
 337   pseudo instruction name.  I.E. print "daddu" or "or" instead of "move",
 338   "sll" instead of "nop", etc.
 339
 340 * objcopy and strip can now take wildcard patterns in symbol names specified on
 341   the command line provided that the --wildcard switch is used to enable them.
 342
 343 * readelf can now parse archives.
 344
 345 * objdump now accepts --debugging-tags to print the debug information in a
 346   format compatible with ctags tool.
 347
 348 * objcopy and strip now accept --only-keep-debug to create a file containing
 349   those sections that would be stripped out by --strip-debug.  The idea is that
 350   this can be used in conjunction with the --add-gnu-debuglink switch to create
 351   a two part program distribution - one a stripped executable and the other the
 352   debugging info.
 353
 354 * objcopy now accepts --add-gnu-debuglink=<file> to insert a .gnu_debuglink
 355   section into a (presumably stripped) executable.  This allows the debug
 356   information for the file to be held in a separate file.
 357
 358 * BFD marks the sections .comment and .note as 'n' in the BSD/POSIX
 359   single-character representation.  This can be checked by running nm
 360   with the -a switch.
 361
 362 Changes in 2.14:
 363
 364 * Added --info switch to objcopy and strip.
 365
 366 * Support for Vitesse IQ2000 added by Red Hat.
 367
 368 * Added 'S' encoding to strings to allow the display of 8-bit characters.
 369
 370 * Added --prefix-symbols=<text>, --prefix-sections=<text> and
 371   --prefix-alloc-sections=<text> to objcopy.
 372
 373 * readelf can handle the extensions to the DWARF2 spec used by the Unified
 374   Parallel C compiler.
 375
 376 * BFD no longer declares a "boolean" type, to avoid clashes with other
 377   headers that declare the same.  Users of BFD should replace boolean,
 378   false and true, with int, 0 and 1, or define their own boolean type.
 379
 380 * Support for IP2K added by Denis Chertykov.
 381
 382 Changes in 2.13:
 383
 384 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 385   and FR500 included.
 386
 387 Changes in version 2.12:
 388
 389 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 390
 391 * size: Add --totals to display summary of sizes (Berkeley format only).
 392
 393 * readelf: Add --wide option to not break section header or segment listing
 394   lines to fit into 80 columns.
 395
 396 * strings: Add --encoding to display wide character strings.  By Markus Kuhn.
 397
 398 * objcopy: Add --rename-section to change section names.
 399
 400 * readelf: Support added for DWARF 2.1 extensions.  Support added for
 401   displaying the contents of .debug.macinfo sections.
 402
 403 * New command line switches added to objcopy to allow symbols to be kept as
 404   global symbols, and also to specify files containing lists of such symbols.
 405   by Honda Hiroki.
 406
 407 * Support for OpenRISC by Johan Rydberg.
 408
 409 * New command line switch to objcopy --alt-machine-code which creates a binary
 410   with an alternate machine code if one is defined in the architecture
 411   description.  Only supported for ELF targets.  By Alexandre Oliva.
 412
 413 * New command line switch to objcopy -B (or --binary-architecture) which sets
 414   the architecture of the output file to the given argument.  This option only
 415   makes sense, if the input target is binary.  Otherwise it is ignored.
 416   By Stefan Geuken.
 417
 418 * Support for PDP-11 by Lars Brinkhoff.
 419
 420 Changes in binutils 2.11:
 421
 422 * Add support for ARM v5t and v5te architectures and Intel's XScale ARM
 423   extenstions.
 424
 425 * Add --srec-len and --srec-forceS3 command line switch to objcopy.
 426   By Luciano Gemme.
 427
 428 * Support for the MIPS32, by Anders Norlander.
 429
 430 * Support for the i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 431
 432 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 433
 434 Changes in binutils 2.10:
 435
 436 * Support for 64-bit ELF on HPPA.
 437
 438 * New command line switch to objdump --file-start-context which shows the
 439   entire file contents up to the source line first encountered for a given
 440   file.
 441
 442 * New command line switch to objdump -M (or --disassembler-options) which takes
 443   a parameter which can then be interpreted on a per-target basis by the
 444   disassembler.  Used by ARM targets to select register name sets, ISA, APCS or
 445   raw verions.
 446
 447 * objdump support for -mi386:intel which causes disassembly to be displayed
 448   with intel syntax.
 449
 450 * New program: readelf.  This displays the contents of ELF format files,
 451   regardless of target machine.
 452
 453 * objcopy now takes --change-section-lma, --change-section-vma, and
 454   --change-section-address options.  The old --adjust-section-vma option is
 455   equivalent to --change-section-address.  The other --adjust-* options are now
 456   renamed to --change-*, although --adjust-* continues to work.
 457
 458 * objcopy has a --redefine-sym option that lets you rename symbols.
 459
 460 * objcopy now takes a -j/--only-section option to copy only the specified
 461   sections.
 462
 463 * dlltool now supports the IMPORTS command.
 464
 465 * dlltool now takes --export-all-symbols, --no-export-all-symbols,
 466   --exclude-symbols, and --no-default-excludes options.
 467
 468 Changes in binutils 2.9:
 469
 470 * Added windres program, which can be used to manipulate resources in WIN32
 471   files as used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
 472
 473 * The objcopy --gap-fill and --pad-to options operate on the LMA rather than
 474   the VMA of the sections.
 475
 476 * Added S modifier to ar to not build a symbol table.
 477
 478 Changes in binutils 2.8:
 479
 480 * The objdump disassembly format has been changed, and hopefully improved.  Use
 481   the new --prefix-addresses option to get the old format.  There are also new
 482   --disassemble-zeroes and --no-show-raw-insn options which affect disassembler
 483   output.
 484
 485 * Formats may now be specified as configuration triplets.  For example,
 486   objdump -b i386-pc-linux.  The triplets are not passed through config.sub,
 487   so they must be in canonical form.
 488
 489 * Added new addr2line program.  This uses the debugging information to convert
 490   an address into a file name and line number within a program.
 491
 492 * Added --change-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 493
 494 * Added --weaken argument to objcopy.
 495
 496 * objdump --dynamic-reloc now works on ELF executables and shared libraries.
 497
 498 * Added --adjust-vma option to objdump.
 499
 500 * Added -C/--demangle option to objdump.
 501
 502 * Added -p/--preserve-dates option to strip and objcopy.
 503
 504 Changes in binutils 2.7:
 505
 506 * Added --enable-shared and --enable-commonbfdlib options to configure.
 507
 508 * Added --debugging argument to objdump and objcopy.
 509
 510 * Added --defined-only argument to nm.
 511
 512 * Added --remove-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 513
 514 * The objdump --line-numbers option is now meaningful with --reloc.
 515
 516 * Added --line-numbers option to nm.
 517
 518 * Added --endian/-EB/-EL option to objdump.
 519
 520 * Added support for Alpha OpenVMS/AXP.
 521
 522 Changes in binutils 2.6:
 523
 524 * Added -N/--strip-symbol and -K/--keep-symbol arguments to strip and objcopy.
 525
 526 * Added several arguments to objcopy to provide some control over how the new
 527   file is laid out in memory.  Also added binary output format to BFD to permit
 528   generating plain binary files.
 529
 530 * Added --start-address and --stop-address options to objdump.
 531
 532 * ar and ranlib now work on AIX.  The tools are now built by default on AIX.
 533
 534 Changes in binutils 2.5:
 535
 536 * Changed objdump -dr to dump the relocs interspersed with the assembly
 537   listing, for a more useful listing of relocatable files.
 538
 539 * Changed objdump -d/--disassemble to only disassemble SEC_CODE sections.
 540   Added -D/--disassemble-all option to disassemble all sections.
 541
 542 * Added --size-sort option to nm.
 543
 544 * strip and objcopy should now be able to handle dynamically linked ELF
 545   executables.
 546
 547 Changes in binutils 2.4:
 548
 549 * Support for HP-PA (by Jeff Law), i386 Mach (by David Mackenzie), RS/6000 and
 550   PowerPC (except ar and ranlib; by Ian Taylor).
 551
 552 * Support for Irix 5.
 553
 554 * Programs `strip' and `objcopy' will not attempt to write dynamically linked
 555   ELF output files, since BFD currently can't create them properly.
 556
 557 Changes in binutils 2.3:
 558
 559 * A new --stabs argument has been added to objdump to dump stabs sections in
 560   ELF and COFF files.
 561
 562 * A new program, nlmconv, has been added.  It can convert object files into
 563   Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
 564
 565 * The strings program has been added.
 566
 567 Changes in binutils 2.2:
 568
 569 * The 'copy' program has been renamed to 'objcopy', for consistency with
 570   'objdump', and because 'copy' might more plausibly be used as a synonym for
 571   'cp'.
 572
 573 * The new stand-alone program c++filt is a filter that converts encoded
 574   (mangled) C++ assembly-level identifiers to user-level names.  (Note: This
 575   may get moved to the gcc distribution.)
 576
 577 * nm -o on an archive now prefixes each line with the archive name, matching
 578   the output from BSD nm.
 579
 580 * ar (and ld) can now read (but not write) BSD4.4-style archives.
 581
 582 * New support for H8500, Z8000, and the Hitach SH.
 583
 584 * Dis-assembler interface changed to allow sharing with gdb.
 585
 586 * There is new Elf code, but it is not yet ready for general use.
 587
 588 * There is the beginnings of a test suite.
 589
 590 Changes in binutils 2.1:
 591
 592 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the other utilities
 593   should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.  Please let us know how well this works.
 594
 595 * ar now automatically creates a symbol table (a __.SYMDEF member, in the BSD
 596   version), if there are any object files in the archive.  So running ranlib is
 597   now redundant (unless the non-standard q command is used).  This is required
 598   for Posix.2 conformance.
 599
 600 * The archive-reading code now reads both BSD-style and SYSV-style archives
 601   independently of the selected target format.  This is to encourage people to
 602   switch to SYSV-format, which has a number of advantages.
 603
 604 * The strip and copy programs now have options to remove debug-symbols only
 605   and/or local symbols only.  They now also support long options.
 606
 607 \f
 608 Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 609
 610 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 611 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 612 notice and this notice are preserved.
 613
 614 Local variables:
 615 fill-column: 79
 616 End: