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252b5132 1-*- text -*-
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3* objdump now accepts --debugging-tags to print the debug information in a
4 format compatible with ctags tool.
5
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6* objcopy and strip now accept --only-keep-debug to create a file containing
7 those sections that would be stripped out by --strip-debug. The idea is that
8 this can be used in conjunction with the --add-gnu-debuglink switch to create
9 a two part program distribution - one a stripped executable and the other the
10 debugging info.
11
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12* objcopy now accepts --add-gnu-debuglink=<file> to insert a .gnu_debuglink
13 section into a (presumably stripped) executable. This allows the debug
14 information for the file to be held in a seperate file.
15
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16* BFD marks the sections .comment and .note as 'n' in the BSD/POSIX
17 single-character representation. This can be checked by running nm
18 with the -a switch.
19
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20* Added --info switch to objcopy and strip.
21
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22* Support for Vitesse IQ2000 added by Red Hat.
23
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24* Added 'S' encoding to strings to allow the display of 8-bit characters.
25
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26* Added --prefix-symbols=<text>, --prefix-sections=<text> and
27 --prefix-alloc-sections=<text> to objcopy.
28
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29* readelf can handle the extensions to the DWARF2 spec used by the Unified
30 Parallel C compiler.
31
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32* BFD no longer declares a "boolean" type, to avoid clashes with other
33 headers that declare the same. Users of BFD should replace boolean,
34 false and true, with int, 0 and 1, or define their own boolean type.
35
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36* Support for IP2K added by Denis Chertykov.
37
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38Changes in 2.13:
39
40* Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
41 and FR500 included.
252b5132 42
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43Changes in version 2.12:
44
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45* Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
46
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47* size: Add --totals to display summary of sizes (Berkeley format only).
48
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49* readelf: Add --wide option to not break section header or segment listing
50 lines to fit into 80 columns.
51
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52* strings: Add --encoding to display wide character strings. By Markus Kuhn.
53
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54* objcopy: Add --rename-section to change section names.
55
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56* readelf: Support added for DWARF 2.1 extensions. Support added for
57 displaying the contents of .debug.macinfo sections.
58
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59* New command line switches added to objcopy to allow symbols to be kept as
60 global symbols, and also to specify files containing lists of such symbols.
61 by Honda Hiroki.
62
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63* Support for OpenRISC by Johan Rydberg.
64
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65* New command line switch to objcopy --alt-machine-code which creates a binary
66 with an alternate machine code if one is defined in the architecture
67 description. Only supported for ELF targets. By Alexandre Oliva.
68
43a0748c 69* New command line switch to objcopy -B (or --binary-architecture) which sets
09ad7db3 70 the architecture of the output file to the given argument. This option only
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71 makes sense, if the input target is binary. Otherwise it is ignored.
72 By Stefan Geuken.
73
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74* Support for PDP-11 by Lars Brinkhoff.
75
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76Changes in binutils 2.11:
77
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78* Add support for ARM v5t and v5te architectures and Intel's XScale ARM
79 extenstions.
80
81* Add --srec-len and --srec-forceS3 command line switch to objcopy.
82 By Luciano Gemme.
7d036af2 83
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84* Support for the MIPS32, by Anders Norlander.
85
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86* Support for the i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
87
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88* Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
89
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90Changes in binutils 2.10:
91
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92* Support for 64-bit ELF on HPPA.
93
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94* New command line switch to objdump --file-start-context which shows the
95 entire file contents up to the source line first encountered for a given
7d036af2 96 file.
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98* New command line switch to objdump -M (or --disassembler-options) which takes
99 a parameter which can then be interpreted on a per-target basis by the
100 disassembler. Used by ARM targets to select register name sets, ISA, APCS or
101 raw verions.
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103* objdump support for -mi386:intel which causes disassembly to be displayed
104 with intel syntax.
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105
106* New program: readelf. This displays the contents of ELF format files,
107 regardless of target machine.
108
109* objcopy now takes --change-section-lma, --change-section-vma, and
110 --change-section-address options. The old --adjust-section-vma option is
111 equivalent to --change-section-address. The other --adjust-* options are now
112 renamed to --change-*, although --adjust-* continues to work.
113
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114* objcopy has a --redefine-sym option that lets you rename symbols.
115
116* objcopy now takes a -j/--only-section option to copy only the specified
117 sections.
118
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119* dlltool now supports the IMPORTS command.
120
121* dlltool now takes --export-all-symbols, --no-export-all-symbols,
122 --exclude-symbols, and --no-default-excludes options.
123
124Changes in binutils 2.9:
125
126* Added windres program, which can be used to manipulate resources in WIN32
127 files as used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
128
129* The objcopy --gap-fill and --pad-to options operate on the LMA rather than
130 the VMA of the sections.
131
132* Added S modifier to ar to not build a symbol table.
133
134Changes in binutils 2.8:
135
136* The objdump disassembly format has been changed, and hopefully improved. Use
137 the new --prefix-addresses option to get the old format. There are also new
138 --disassemble-zeroes and --no-show-raw-insn options which affect disassembler
139 output.
140
141* Formats may now be specified as configuration triplets. For example,
142 objdump -b i386-pc-linux. The triplets are not passed through config.sub,
143 so they must be in canonical form.
144
145* Added new addr2line program. This uses the debugging information to convert
146 an address into a file name and line number within a program.
147
148* Added --change-leading-char argument to objcopy.
149
150* Added --weaken argument to objcopy.
151
152* objdump --dynamic-reloc now works on ELF executables and shared libraries.
153
154* Added --adjust-vma option to objdump.
155
156* Added -C/--demangle option to objdump.
157
158* Added -p/--preserve-dates option to strip and objcopy.
159
160Changes in binutils 2.7:
161
162* Added --enable-shared and --enable-commonbfdlib options to configure.
163
164* Added --debugging argument to objdump and objcopy.
165
166* Added --defined-only argument to nm.
167
168* Added --remove-leading-char argument to objcopy.
169
170* The objdump --line-numbers option is now meaningful with --reloc.
171
172* Added --line-numbers option to nm.
173
174* Added --endian/-EB/-EL option to objdump.
175
176* Added support for Alpha OpenVMS/AXP.
177
178Changes in binutils 2.6:
179
180* Added -N/--strip-symbol and -K/--keep-symbol arguments to strip and objcopy.
181
182* Added several arguments to objcopy to provide some control over how the new
183 file is laid out in memory. Also added binary output format to BFD to permit
184 generating plain binary files.
185
186* Added --start-address and --stop-address options to objdump.
187
188* ar and ranlib now work on AIX. The tools are now built by default on AIX.
189
190Changes in binutils 2.5:
191
192* Changed objdump -dr to dump the relocs interspersed with the assembly
1049f94e 193 listing, for a more useful listing of relocatable files.
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194
195* Changed objdump -d/--disassemble to only disassemble SEC_CODE sections.
196 Added -D/--disassemble-all option to disassemble all sections.
197
198* Added --size-sort option to nm.
199
200* strip and objcopy should now be able to handle dynamically linked ELF
201 executables.
202
203Changes in binutils 2.4:
204
205* Support for HP-PA (by Jeff Law), i386 Mach (by David Mackenzie), RS/6000 and
206 PowerPC (except ar and ranlib; by Ian Taylor).
207
208* Support for Irix 5.
209
210* Programs `strip' and `objcopy' will not attempt to write dynamically linked
211 ELF output files, since BFD currently can't create them properly.
212
213Changes in binutils 2.3:
214
215* A new --stabs argument has been added to objdump to dump stabs sections in
216 ELF and COFF files.
217
218* A new program, nlmconv, has been added. It can convert object files into
219 Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
220
221* The strings program has been added.
222
223Changes in binutils 2.2:
224
225* The 'copy' program has been renamed to 'objcopy', for consistency with
226 'objdump', and because 'copy' might more plausibly be used as a synonym for
227 'cp'.
228
229* The new stand-alone program c++filt is a filter that converts encoded
230 (mangled) C++ assembly-level identifiers to user-level names. (Note: This
231 may get moved to the gcc distribution.)
232
233* nm -o on an archive now prefixes each line with the archive name, matching
234 the output from BSD nm.
235
236* ar (and ld) can now read (but not write) BSD4.4-style archives.
237
238* New support for H8500, Z8000, and the Hitach SH.
239
240* Dis-assembler interface changed to allow sharing with gdb.
241
242* There is new Elf code, but it is not yet ready for general use.
243
244* There is the beginnings of a test suite.
245
246Changes in binutils 2.1:
247
248* There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the other utilities
249 should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. Please let us know how well this works.
250
251* ar now automatically creates a symbol table (a __.SYMDEF member, in the BSD
252 version), if there are any object files in the archive. So running ranlib is
253 now redundant (unless the non-standard q command is used). This is required
254 for Posix.2 conformance.
255
256* The archive-reading code now reads both BSD-style and SYSV-style archives
257 independently of the selected target format. This is to encourage people to
258 switch to SYSV-format, which has a number of advantages.
259
260* The strip and copy programs now have options to remove debug-symbols only
261 and/or local symbols only. They now also support long options.
262
263\f
264Local variables:
265fill-column: 79
266End:
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