binutils/NEWS

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