binutils/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * powerpc-linux ld now supports a variant form of PLT and GOT for the security
   4   conscious.  This form will automatically be chosen when ld detects that all
   5   code in regular object files was generated by gcc -msecure-plt.  The old PLT
   6   and GOT may be forced by a new ld option, --bss-plt.
   7
   8 * Add "-i/--inlines" to addr2line to print enclosing scope information
   9   for inlined function chains, back to first non-inlined function.
  10
  11 * Add "-N/--full-section-name" to readelf to display full section name.
  12
  13 * Add "-M entry:<addr>" switch to objdump to specify a function entry address
  14   when disassembling VAX binaries.
  15
  16 * Add "--globalize-symbol <name>" and "--globalize-symbols <filename>" switches
  17   to objcopy to convert local symbols into global symbols.
  18
  19 Changes in 2.16:
  20
  21 * Add "-g/--section-groups" to readelf to display section groups.
  22
  23 * objcopy recognizes two new options --strip-unneeded-symbol and
  24   --strip-unneeded-symbols, namely for use together with the wildcard
  25   matching the original --strip-symbol/--strip-symbols provided, but
  26   retaining any symbols matching but needed by relocations.
  27
  28 * readelf can now display address ranges from .debug_range sections.  This
  29   happens automatically when a DW_AT_range attribute is encountered.  The
  30   command line switch --debug-dump=Ranges (or -wR) can also be used to display
  31   the contents of the .debug_range section.
  32
  33 * nm and objdump now have a switch "--special-syms" to enable the displaying of
  34   symbols which the target considers to be special.  By default these symbols
  35   are no longer displayed.  Currently the only special symbols are the Mapping
  36   symbols used by the ARM port to mark transitions between text and data and
  37   between ARM and THUMB code.
  38
  39 * dlltool has a switch "--ext-prefix-alias <prefix>" to generate additional
  40   import and export symbols with <preifx> prepended to them.
  41
  42 Changes in 2.15:
  43
  44 * objcopy for MIPS targets now accepts "-M no-aliases" as an option to the
  45   disassembler to print the "raw" mips instruction mnemonic instead of some
  46   pseudo instruction name.  I.E. print "daddu" or "or" instead of "move",
  47   "sll" instead of "nop", etc.
  48
  49 * objcopy and strip can now take wildcard patterns in symbol names specified on
  50   the command line provided that the --wildcard switch is used to enable them.
  51
  52 * readelf can now parse archives.
  53
  54 * objdump now accepts --debugging-tags to print the debug information in a
  55   format compatible with ctags tool.
  56
  57 * objcopy and strip now accept --only-keep-debug to create a file containing
  58   those sections that would be stripped out by --strip-debug.  The idea is that
  59   this can be used in conjunction with the --add-gnu-debuglink switch to create
  60   a two part program distribution - one a stripped executable and the other the
  61   debugging info.
  62
  63 * objcopy now accepts --add-gnu-debuglink=<file> to insert a .gnu_debuglink
  64   section into a (presumably stripped) executable.  This allows the debug
  65   information for the file to be held in a separate file.
  66
  67 * BFD marks the sections .comment and .note as 'n' in the BSD/POSIX
  68   single-character representation.  This can be checked by running nm
  69   with the -a switch.
  70
  71 Changes in 2.14:
  72
  73 * Added --info switch to objcopy and strip.
  74
  75 * Support for Vitesse IQ2000 added by Red Hat.
  76
  77 * Added 'S' encoding to strings to allow the display of 8-bit characters.
  78
  79 * Added --prefix-symbols=<text>, --prefix-sections=<text> and
  80   --prefix-alloc-sections=<text> to objcopy.
  81
  82 * readelf can handle the extensions to the DWARF2 spec used by the Unified
  83   Parallel C compiler.
  84
  85 * BFD no longer declares a "boolean" type, to avoid clashes with other
  86   headers that declare the same.  Users of BFD should replace boolean,
  87   false and true, with int, 0 and 1, or define their own boolean type.
  88
  89 * Support for IP2K added by Denis Chertykov.
  90
  91 Changes in 2.13:
  92
  93 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
  94   and FR500 included.
  95
  96 Changes in version 2.12:
  97
  98 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
  99
 100 * size: Add --totals to display summary of sizes (Berkeley format only).
 101
 102 * readelf: Add --wide option to not break section header or segment listing
 103   lines to fit into 80 columns.
 104
 105 * strings: Add --encoding to display wide character strings.  By Markus Kuhn.
 106
 107 * objcopy: Add --rename-section to change section names.
 108
 109 * readelf: Support added for DWARF 2.1 extensions.  Support added for
 110   displaying the contents of .debug.macinfo sections.
 111
 112 * New command line switches added to objcopy to allow symbols to be kept as
 113   global symbols, and also to specify files containing lists of such symbols.
 114   by Honda Hiroki.
 115
 116 * Support for OpenRISC by Johan Rydberg.
 117
 118 * New command line switch to objcopy --alt-machine-code which creates a binary
 119   with an alternate machine code if one is defined in the architecture
 120   description.  Only supported for ELF targets.  By Alexandre Oliva.
 121
 122 * New command line switch to objcopy -B (or --binary-architecture) which sets
 123   the architecture of the output file to the given argument.  This option only
 124   makes sense, if the input target is binary.  Otherwise it is ignored.
 125   By Stefan Geuken.
 126
 127 * Support for PDP-11 by Lars Brinkhoff.
 128
 129 Changes in binutils 2.11:
 130
 131 * Add support for ARM v5t and v5te architectures and Intel's XScale ARM
 132   extenstions.
 133
 134 * Add --srec-len and --srec-forceS3 command line switch to objcopy.
 135   By Luciano Gemme.
 136
 137 * Support for the MIPS32, by Anders Norlander.
 138
 139 * Support for the i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 140
 141 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 142
 143 Changes in binutils 2.10:
 144
 145 * Support for 64-bit ELF on HPPA.
 146
 147 * New command line switch to objdump --file-start-context which shows the
 148   entire file contents up to the source line first encountered for a given
 149   file.
 150
 151 * New command line switch to objdump -M (or --disassembler-options) which takes
 152   a parameter which can then be interpreted on a per-target basis by the
 153   disassembler.  Used by ARM targets to select register name sets, ISA, APCS or
 154   raw verions.
 155
 156 * objdump support for -mi386:intel which causes disassembly to be displayed
 157   with intel syntax.
 158
 159 * New program: readelf.  This displays the contents of ELF format files,
 160   regardless of target machine.
 161
 162 * objcopy now takes --change-section-lma, --change-section-vma, and
 163   --change-section-address options.  The old --adjust-section-vma option is
 164   equivalent to --change-section-address.  The other --adjust-* options are now
 165   renamed to --change-*, although --adjust-* continues to work.
 166
 167 * objcopy has a --redefine-sym option that lets you rename symbols.
 168
 169 * objcopy now takes a -j/--only-section option to copy only the specified
 170   sections.
 171
 172 * dlltool now supports the IMPORTS command.
 173
 174 * dlltool now takes --export-all-symbols, --no-export-all-symbols,
 175   --exclude-symbols, and --no-default-excludes options.
 176
 177 Changes in binutils 2.9:
 178
 179 * Added windres program, which can be used to manipulate resources in WIN32
 180   files as used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
 181
 182 * The objcopy --gap-fill and --pad-to options operate on the LMA rather than
 183   the VMA of the sections.
 184
 185 * Added S modifier to ar to not build a symbol table.
 186
 187 Changes in binutils 2.8:
 188
 189 * The objdump disassembly format has been changed, and hopefully improved.  Use
 190   the new --prefix-addresses option to get the old format.  There are also new
 191   --disassemble-zeroes and --no-show-raw-insn options which affect disassembler
 192   output.
 193
 194 * Formats may now be specified as configuration triplets.  For example,
 195   objdump -b i386-pc-linux.  The triplets are not passed through config.sub,
 196   so they must be in canonical form.
 197
 198 * Added new addr2line program.  This uses the debugging information to convert
 199   an address into a file name and line number within a program.
 200
 201 * Added --change-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 202
 203 * Added --weaken argument to objcopy.
 204
 205 * objdump --dynamic-reloc now works on ELF executables and shared libraries.
 206
 207 * Added --adjust-vma option to objdump.
 208
 209 * Added -C/--demangle option to objdump.
 210
 211 * Added -p/--preserve-dates option to strip and objcopy.
 212
 213 Changes in binutils 2.7:
 214
 215 * Added --enable-shared and --enable-commonbfdlib options to configure.
 216
 217 * Added --debugging argument to objdump and objcopy.
 218
 219 * Added --defined-only argument to nm.
 220
 221 * Added --remove-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 222
 223 * The objdump --line-numbers option is now meaningful with --reloc.
 224
 225 * Added --line-numbers option to nm.
 226
 227 * Added --endian/-EB/-EL option to objdump.
 228
 229 * Added support for Alpha OpenVMS/AXP.
 230
 231 Changes in binutils 2.6:
 232
 233 * Added -N/--strip-symbol and -K/--keep-symbol arguments to strip and objcopy.
 234
 235 * Added several arguments to objcopy to provide some control over how the new
 236   file is laid out in memory.  Also added binary output format to BFD to permit
 237   generating plain binary files.
 238
 239 * Added --start-address and --stop-address options to objdump.
 240
 241 * ar and ranlib now work on AIX.  The tools are now built by default on AIX.
 242
 243 Changes in binutils 2.5:
 244
 245 * Changed objdump -dr to dump the relocs interspersed with the assembly
 246   listing, for a more useful listing of relocatable files.
 247
 248 * Changed objdump -d/--disassemble to only disassemble SEC_CODE sections.
 249   Added -D/--disassemble-all option to disassemble all sections.
 250
 251 * Added --size-sort option to nm.
 252
 253 * strip and objcopy should now be able to handle dynamically linked ELF
 254   executables.
 255
 256 Changes in binutils 2.4:
 257
 258 * Support for HP-PA (by Jeff Law), i386 Mach (by David Mackenzie), RS/6000 and
 259   PowerPC (except ar and ranlib; by Ian Taylor).
 260
 261 * Support for Irix 5.
 262
 263 * Programs `strip' and `objcopy' will not attempt to write dynamically linked
 264   ELF output files, since BFD currently can't create them properly.
 265
 266 Changes in binutils 2.3:
 267
 268 * A new --stabs argument has been added to objdump to dump stabs sections in
 269   ELF and COFF files.
 270
 271 * A new program, nlmconv, has been added.  It can convert object files into
 272   Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
 273
 274 * The strings program has been added.
 275
 276 Changes in binutils 2.2:
 277
 278 * The 'copy' program has been renamed to 'objcopy', for consistency with
 279   'objdump', and because 'copy' might more plausibly be used as a synonym for
 280   'cp'.
 281
 282 * The new stand-alone program c++filt is a filter that converts encoded
 283   (mangled) C++ assembly-level identifiers to user-level names.  (Note: This
 284   may get moved to the gcc distribution.)
 285
 286 * nm -o on an archive now prefixes each line with the archive name, matching
 287   the output from BSD nm.
 288
 289 * ar (and ld) can now read (but not write) BSD4.4-style archives.
 290
 291 * New support for H8500, Z8000, and the Hitach SH.
 292
 293 * Dis-assembler interface changed to allow sharing with gdb.
 294
 295 * There is new Elf code, but it is not yet ready for general use.
 296
 297 * There is the beginnings of a test suite.
 298
 299 Changes in binutils 2.1:
 300
 301 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the other utilities
 302   should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.  Please let us know how well this works.
 303
 304 * ar now automatically creates a symbol table (a __.SYMDEF member, in the BSD
 305   version), if there are any object files in the archive.  So running ranlib is
 306   now redundant (unless the non-standard q command is used).  This is required
 307   for Posix.2 conformance.
 308
 309 * The archive-reading code now reads both BSD-style and SYSV-style archives
 310   independently of the selected target format.  This is to encourage people to
 311   switch to SYSV-format, which has a number of advantages.
 312
 313 * The strip and copy programs now have options to remove debug-symbols only
 314   and/or local symbols only.  They now also support long options.
 315
 316 \f
 317 Local variables:
 318 fill-column: 79
 319 End: