binutils/NEWS

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