binutils/NEWS

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