binutils/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * The MIPS port now supports microMIPS eXtended Physical Addressing (XPA)
   4   instructions for assembly and disassembly.
   5
   6 * The MIPS port now supports the microMIPS Release 5 ISA for assembly and
   7   disassembly.
   8
   9 * The MIPS port now supports the Imagination interAptiv MR2 processor,
  10   which implements the MIPS32r3 ISA, the MIPS16e2 ASE as well as a couple
  11   of implementation-specific regular MIPS and MIPS16e2 ASE instructions.
  12
  13 * The SPARC port now supports the SPARC M8 processor, which implements the
  14   Oracle SPARC Architecture 2017.
  15
  16 * The MIPS port now supports the MIPS16e2 ASE for assembly and disassembly.
  17
  18 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX.
  19
  20 * Add support for the wasm32 ELF conversion of the WebAssembly file format.
  21
  22 * Add --inlines option to objdump, which extends the --line-numbers option
  23   so that inlined functions will display their nesting information.
  24
  25 * Add --merge-notes options to objcopy to reduce the size of notes in
  26   a binary file by merging and deleting redundant notes.
  27
  28 * Add support for locating separate debug info files using the build-id
  29   method, where the separate file has a name based upon the build-id of
  30   the original file.
  31
  32 Changes in 2.28:
  33
  34 * This version of binutils fixes a problem with PowerPC VLE 16A and 16D
  35   relocations which were functionally swapped, for example,
  36   R_PPC_VLE_HA16A performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16D while R_PPC_VLE_HA16D
  37   performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16A.  This could have been fixed by
  38   renumbering relocations, which would keep object files created by an
  39   older version of gas compatible with a newer ld.  However, that would
  40   require an ABI update, affecting other assemblers and linkers that
  41   create and process the relocations correctly.  It is recommended that
  42   all VLE object files be recompiled, but ld can modify the relocations
  43   if --vle-reloc-fixup is passed to ld.  If the new ld command line
  44   option is not used, ld will ld warn on finding relocations inconsistent
  45   with the instructions being relocated.
  46
  47 * The nm program has a new command line option (--with-version-strings)
  48   which will display a symbol's version information, if any, after the
  49   symbol's name.
  50
  51 * The ARC port of objdump now accepts a -M option to specify the extra
  52   instruction class(es) that should be disassembled.
  53
  54 * The --remove-section option for objcopy and strip now accepts section
  55   patterns starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching
  56   section.  A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections
  57   matched by an earlier --remove-section pattern.
  58
  59 * The --only-section option for objcopy now accepts section patterns
  60   starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching section.
  61   A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections matched by
  62   an earlier --only-section pattern.
  63
  64 * New --remove-relocations=SECTIONPATTERN option for objcopy and strip.
  65   This option can be used to remove sections containing relocations.
  66   The SECTIONPATTERN is the section to which the relocations apply, not
  67   the relocation section itself.
  68
  69 Changes in 2.27:
  70
  71 * Add a configure option, --enable-64-bit-archive, to force use of a
  72   64-bit format when creating an archive symbol index.
  73
  74 * Add --elf-stt-common= option to objcopy for ELF targets to control
  75   whether to convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type.
  76
  77 Changes in 2.26:
  78
  79 * Add option to objcopy to insert new symbols into a file:
  80   --add-symbol <name>=[<section>:]<value>[,<flags>]
  81
  82 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
  83
  84 * Extend objcopy --compress-debug-sections option to support
  85   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
  86   targets.
  87
  88 * Add --update-section option to objcopy.
  89
  90 * Add --output-separator option to strings.
  91
  92 Changes in 2.25:
  93
  94 * Add --data option to strings to only print strings in loadable, initialized
  95   data sections.  Change the default behaviour to be --all, but add a new
  96   configure time option of --disable-default-strings-all to restore the old
  97   default behaviour.
  98
  99 * Add --include-all-whitespace to strings.
 100
 101 * Add --dump-section option to objcopy.
 102
 103 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 104
 105 Changes in 2.24:
 106
 107 * Objcopy now supports wildcard characters in command line options that take
 108   section names.
 109
 110 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 111
 112 Changes in 2.23:
 113
 114 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 115
 116 * Add support for x64 Windows target of the delayed-load-library.
 117
 118 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 119
 120 Changes in 2.22:
 121
 122 * Add support for displaying the contents of .debug.macro sections.
 123
 124 * Add --preprocessor-arg option to windres to specify additional options
 125   passed to preprocessor.
 126
 127 * Add --dwarf-start and --dwarf-end to readelf and objdump.  These are used by
 128   the new Emacs mode, see dwarf-mode.el.
 129
 130 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 131
 132 changes in 2.21:
 133
 134 * Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of
 135   bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
 136
 137 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 138
 139 * Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using
 140   the -u / --unwind option.
 141
 142 * Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
 143
 144 * A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format
 145   binaries.
 146
 147 * Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by
 148   '== <ID>' option.
 149
 150 * Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the
 151   address before function name or source filename.
 152
 153 * Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have
 154   a more human readable output.
 155
 156 * The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
 157
 158 Changes in 2.20:
 159
 160 * Add support for delay importing to dlltool.  Use the --output-delaylib <file>
 161   switch to create a delay-import library.  The resulting app will load the dll
 162   as soon as the first function is called.  It will link to __delayLoadHelper2()
 163   from the static delayimp library, which will import LoadLibraryA and
 164   GetProcAddress from kernel32.
 165
 166 * Add a new command line option, --insn-width=WIDTH, to objdump to specify
 167   number of bytes to be displayed on a single line when disassembling
 168   instructions.
 169
 170 * Readelf can now display the relocated contents of a section as a sequence
 171   of bytes via the --relocated-dump=<name|number> command line option.
 172
 173 * The gprof program has been given a new command line option:
 174   --external-symbols-table=<filename> which reads in symbols from a specified
 175   file.
 176
 177 * The plugin target has been added to bfd. It can load the same shared objects
 178   used by gold and uses them to provide basic support for new file formats.
 179
 180 * The verilog memory hex dump file format is now supported as an output format
 181   for objcopy.
 182
 183 * Add --file-alignment, --heap, --image-base, --section-alignment,
 184   --stack and --subsystem command line options to objcopy, which will
 185   set PE optional header.
 186
 187 * Option --dwarf/-W of objdump is now as flexible as readelf --debug-dump/-w.
 188
 189 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 190   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 191   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 192   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 193
 194 * Added --prefix=PREFIX and --prefix-strip=LEVEL switches to objdump to
 195   add absolute paths for -S.
 196
 197 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to dlltool to allow fall-
 198   back to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 199
 200 * Added --identify-strict switch to cause --identify <implib> to
 201   report an error when the import library is associated with
 202   multiple DLLs.
 203
 204 * Added --identify <implib> option to dlltool, which determines the
 205   name of the DLL associated with the specified <implib>.
 206
 207 * Support for PowerPC booke64 instructions has been removed.  The assembler no
 208   longer accepts -mbooke32 or -mbooke64 and the disassembler no longer accepts
 209   -Mbooke32 or -Mbooke64.  Instead, -mbooke and -Mbooke should be used.
 210
 211 Changes in 2.19:
 212
 213 * Added -wL switch to dump decoded contents of .debug_line.
 214
 215 * Added support for "thin" archives which contain pathnames pointing to
 216   object files rather than the files themselves and which contain a
 217   flattened symbol index for all objects, and archives, which have been
 218   added to the archive.
 219
 220 * Added -F switch to objdump to include file offsets in the disassembly.
 221
 222 * Added -c switch to readelf to allow string dumps of archive symbol index.
 223
 224 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 225
 226 * Added -p switch to readelf to allow string dumps of sections.
 227
 228 Changes in 2.18:
 229
 230 * Resolved 37 coding problems in bfd including static array overruns, null
 231   pointer dereferences and use of a malloc buffer after it has been freed, as
 232   revealed by static analysis donated by Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
 233
 234 * The binutils sources are now released under version 3 of the GNU General
 235   Public License.
 236
 237 * A new tool "windmc" has been added for some targets.  This is a message
 238   compiler which attempts to be compatible with the MS version.
 239
 240 * Add codepage support to the windres tool.  It now supports many new
 241   resource types (e.g. MANIFEST, TOOLBAR, etc).  The output generation
 242   for binary files is done now via bfd itself.  The endianess problems
 243   for different hosts are solved.  Dumps of .res files can now be
 244   re-compiled by windres without lossing resources or compilation errors.
 245   Some problems on dialog resource translations are corrected.
 246
 247 * Add --extract-symbol command line option to objcopy, which will
 248   strip everything out of an ordinary object file or executable except
 249   for its symbol table.  Files containing just symbols can be useful
 250   to some OSes.
 251
 252 Changes in 2.17:
 253
 254 * Add "-x NAME" to readelf in addition to "-x NUMBER".
 255
 256 * Add -i and -t switches to cxxfilt.  -i disables the display of implementation
 257   specific extra demangling information (if any) and -t disables the demangling
 258   of types.
 259
 260 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command lines of all tools, so
 261   that extra switches can be read from <file>.
 262
 263 * Add "-W/--dwarf" to objdump to display the contents of the DWARF
 264   debug sections.
 265
 266 * Add "-t/--section-details" to readelf to display section details.
 267   "-N/--full-section-name" is deprecated.
 268
 269 * powerpc-linux ld now supports a variant form of PLT and GOT for the security
 270   conscious.  This form will automatically be chosen when ld detects that all
 271   code in regular object files was generated by gcc -msecure-plt.  The old PLT
 272   and GOT may be forced by a new ld option, --bss-plt.
 273
 274 * Add "-i/--inlines" to addr2line to print enclosing scope information
 275   for inlined function chains, back to first non-inlined function.
 276
 277 * Add "-N/--full-section-name" to readelf to display full section name.
 278
 279 * Add "-M entry:<addr>" switch to objdump to specify a function entry address
 280   when disassembling VAX binaries.
 281
 282 * Add "--globalize-symbol <name>" and "--globalize-symbols <filename>" switches
 283   to objcopy to convert local symbols into global symbols.
 284
 285 * gprof now allows input files to have histogram records for
 286   several memory ranges, provided those ranges are disjoint.
 287
 288 Changes in 2.16:
 289
 290 * Add "-g/--section-groups" to readelf to display section groups.
 291
 292 * objcopy recognizes two new options --strip-unneeded-symbol and
 293   --strip-unneeded-symbols, namely for use together with the wildcard
 294   matching the original --strip-symbol/--strip-symbols provided, but
 295   retaining any symbols matching but needed by relocations.
 296
 297 * readelf can now display address ranges from .debug_range sections.  This
 298   happens automatically when a DW_AT_range attribute is encountered.  The
 299   command line switch --debug-dump=Ranges (or -wR) can also be used to display
 300   the contents of the .debug_range section.
 301
 302 * nm and objdump now have a switch "--special-syms" to enable the displaying of
 303   symbols which the target considers to be special.  By default these symbols
 304   are no longer displayed.  Currently the only special symbols are the Mapping
 305   symbols used by the ARM port to mark transitions between text and data and
 306   between ARM and THUMB code.
 307
 308 * dlltool has a switch "--ext-prefix-alias <prefix>" to generate additional
 309   import and export symbols with <preifx> prepended to them.
 310
 311 Changes in 2.15:
 312
 313 * objcopy for MIPS targets now accepts "-M no-aliases" as an option to the
 314   disassembler to print the "raw" mips instruction mnemonic instead of some
 315   pseudo instruction name.  I.E. print "daddu" or "or" instead of "move",
 316   "sll" instead of "nop", etc.
 317
 318 * objcopy and strip can now take wildcard patterns in symbol names specified on
 319   the command line provided that the --wildcard switch is used to enable them.
 320
 321 * readelf can now parse archives.
 322
 323 * objdump now accepts --debugging-tags to print the debug information in a
 324   format compatible with ctags tool.
 325
 326 * objcopy and strip now accept --only-keep-debug to create a file containing
 327   those sections that would be stripped out by --strip-debug.  The idea is that
 328   this can be used in conjunction with the --add-gnu-debuglink switch to create
 329   a two part program distribution - one a stripped executable and the other the
 330   debugging info.
 331
 332 * objcopy now accepts --add-gnu-debuglink=<file> to insert a .gnu_debuglink
 333   section into a (presumably stripped) executable.  This allows the debug
 334   information for the file to be held in a separate file.
 335
 336 * BFD marks the sections .comment and .note as 'n' in the BSD/POSIX
 337   single-character representation.  This can be checked by running nm
 338   with the -a switch.
 339
 340 Changes in 2.14:
 341
 342 * Added --info switch to objcopy and strip.
 343
 344 * Support for Vitesse IQ2000 added by Red Hat.
 345
 346 * Added 'S' encoding to strings to allow the display of 8-bit characters.
 347
 348 * Added --prefix-symbols=<text>, --prefix-sections=<text> and
 349   --prefix-alloc-sections=<text> to objcopy.
 350
 351 * readelf can handle the extensions to the DWARF2 spec used by the Unified
 352   Parallel C compiler.
 353
 354 * BFD no longer declares a "boolean" type, to avoid clashes with other
 355   headers that declare the same.  Users of BFD should replace boolean,
 356   false and true, with int, 0 and 1, or define their own boolean type.
 357
 358 * Support for IP2K added by Denis Chertykov.
 359
 360 Changes in 2.13:
 361
 362 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 363   and FR500 included.
 364
 365 Changes in version 2.12:
 366
 367 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 368
 369 * size: Add --totals to display summary of sizes (Berkeley format only).
 370
 371 * readelf: Add --wide option to not break section header or segment listing
 372   lines to fit into 80 columns.
 373
 374 * strings: Add --encoding to display wide character strings.  By Markus Kuhn.
 375
 376 * objcopy: Add --rename-section to change section names.
 377
 378 * readelf: Support added for DWARF 2.1 extensions.  Support added for
 379   displaying the contents of .debug.macinfo sections.
 380
 381 * New command line switches added to objcopy to allow symbols to be kept as
 382   global symbols, and also to specify files containing lists of such symbols.
 383   by Honda Hiroki.
 384
 385 * Support for OpenRISC by Johan Rydberg.
 386
 387 * New command line switch to objcopy --alt-machine-code which creates a binary
 388   with an alternate machine code if one is defined in the architecture
 389   description.  Only supported for ELF targets.  By Alexandre Oliva.
 390
 391 * New command line switch to objcopy -B (or --binary-architecture) which sets
 392   the architecture of the output file to the given argument.  This option only
 393   makes sense, if the input target is binary.  Otherwise it is ignored.
 394   By Stefan Geuken.
 395
 396 * Support for PDP-11 by Lars Brinkhoff.
 397
 398 Changes in binutils 2.11:
 399
 400 * Add support for ARM v5t and v5te architectures and Intel's XScale ARM
 401   extenstions.
 402
 403 * Add --srec-len and --srec-forceS3 command line switch to objcopy.
 404   By Luciano Gemme.
 405
 406 * Support for the MIPS32, by Anders Norlander.
 407
 408 * Support for the i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 409
 410 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 411
 412 Changes in binutils 2.10:
 413
 414 * Support for 64-bit ELF on HPPA.
 415
 416 * New command line switch to objdump --file-start-context which shows the
 417   entire file contents up to the source line first encountered for a given
 418   file.
 419
 420 * New command line switch to objdump -M (or --disassembler-options) which takes
 421   a parameter which can then be interpreted on a per-target basis by the
 422   disassembler.  Used by ARM targets to select register name sets, ISA, APCS or
 423   raw verions.
 424
 425 * objdump support for -mi386:intel which causes disassembly to be displayed
 426   with intel syntax.
 427
 428 * New program: readelf.  This displays the contents of ELF format files,
 429   regardless of target machine.
 430
 431 * objcopy now takes --change-section-lma, --change-section-vma, and
 432   --change-section-address options.  The old --adjust-section-vma option is
 433   equivalent to --change-section-address.  The other --adjust-* options are now
 434   renamed to --change-*, although --adjust-* continues to work.
 435
 436 * objcopy has a --redefine-sym option that lets you rename symbols.
 437
 438 * objcopy now takes a -j/--only-section option to copy only the specified
 439   sections.
 440
 441 * dlltool now supports the IMPORTS command.
 442
 443 * dlltool now takes --export-all-symbols, --no-export-all-symbols,
 444   --exclude-symbols, and --no-default-excludes options.
 445
 446 Changes in binutils 2.9:
 447
 448 * Added windres program, which can be used to manipulate resources in WIN32
 449   files as used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
 450
 451 * The objcopy --gap-fill and --pad-to options operate on the LMA rather than
 452   the VMA of the sections.
 453
 454 * Added S modifier to ar to not build a symbol table.
 455
 456 Changes in binutils 2.8:
 457
 458 * The objdump disassembly format has been changed, and hopefully improved.  Use
 459   the new --prefix-addresses option to get the old format.  There are also new
 460   --disassemble-zeroes and --no-show-raw-insn options which affect disassembler
 461   output.
 462
 463 * Formats may now be specified as configuration triplets.  For example,
 464   objdump -b i386-pc-linux.  The triplets are not passed through config.sub,
 465   so they must be in canonical form.
 466
 467 * Added new addr2line program.  This uses the debugging information to convert
 468   an address into a file name and line number within a program.
 469
 470 * Added --change-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 471
 472 * Added --weaken argument to objcopy.
 473
 474 * objdump --dynamic-reloc now works on ELF executables and shared libraries.
 475
 476 * Added --adjust-vma option to objdump.
 477
 478 * Added -C/--demangle option to objdump.
 479
 480 * Added -p/--preserve-dates option to strip and objcopy.
 481
 482 Changes in binutils 2.7:
 483
 484 * Added --enable-shared and --enable-commonbfdlib options to configure.
 485
 486 * Added --debugging argument to objdump and objcopy.
 487
 488 * Added --defined-only argument to nm.
 489
 490 * Added --remove-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 491
 492 * The objdump --line-numbers option is now meaningful with --reloc.
 493
 494 * Added --line-numbers option to nm.
 495
 496 * Added --endian/-EB/-EL option to objdump.
 497
 498 * Added support for Alpha OpenVMS/AXP.
 499
 500 Changes in binutils 2.6:
 501
 502 * Added -N/--strip-symbol and -K/--keep-symbol arguments to strip and objcopy.
 503
 504 * Added several arguments to objcopy to provide some control over how the new
 505   file is laid out in memory.  Also added binary output format to BFD to permit
 506   generating plain binary files.
 507
 508 * Added --start-address and --stop-address options to objdump.
 509
 510 * ar and ranlib now work on AIX.  The tools are now built by default on AIX.
 511
 512 Changes in binutils 2.5:
 513
 514 * Changed objdump -dr to dump the relocs interspersed with the assembly
 515   listing, for a more useful listing of relocatable files.
 516
 517 * Changed objdump -d/--disassemble to only disassemble SEC_CODE sections.
 518   Added -D/--disassemble-all option to disassemble all sections.
 519
 520 * Added --size-sort option to nm.
 521
 522 * strip and objcopy should now be able to handle dynamically linked ELF
 523   executables.
 524
 525 Changes in binutils 2.4:
 526
 527 * Support for HP-PA (by Jeff Law), i386 Mach (by David Mackenzie), RS/6000 and
 528   PowerPC (except ar and ranlib; by Ian Taylor).
 529
 530 * Support for Irix 5.
 531
 532 * Programs `strip' and `objcopy' will not attempt to write dynamically linked
 533   ELF output files, since BFD currently can't create them properly.
 534
 535 Changes in binutils 2.3:
 536
 537 * A new --stabs argument has been added to objdump to dump stabs sections in
 538   ELF and COFF files.
 539
 540 * A new program, nlmconv, has been added.  It can convert object files into
 541   Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
 542
 543 * The strings program has been added.
 544
 545 Changes in binutils 2.2:
 546
 547 * The 'copy' program has been renamed to 'objcopy', for consistency with
 548   'objdump', and because 'copy' might more plausibly be used as a synonym for
 549   'cp'.
 550
 551 * The new stand-alone program c++filt is a filter that converts encoded
 552   (mangled) C++ assembly-level identifiers to user-level names.  (Note: This
 553   may get moved to the gcc distribution.)
 554
 555 * nm -o on an archive now prefixes each line with the archive name, matching
 556   the output from BSD nm.
 557
 558 * ar (and ld) can now read (but not write) BSD4.4-style archives.
 559
 560 * New support for H8500, Z8000, and the Hitach SH.
 561
 562 * Dis-assembler interface changed to allow sharing with gdb.
 563
 564 * There is new Elf code, but it is not yet ready for general use.
 565
 566 * There is the beginnings of a test suite.
 567
 568 Changes in binutils 2.1:
 569
 570 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the other utilities
 571   should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.  Please let us know how well this works.
 572
 573 * ar now automatically creates a symbol table (a __.SYMDEF member, in the BSD
 574   version), if there are any object files in the archive.  So running ranlib is
 575   now redundant (unless the non-standard q command is used).  This is required
 576   for Posix.2 conformance.
 577
 578 * The archive-reading code now reads both BSD-style and SYSV-style archives
 579   independently of the selected target format.  This is to encourage people to
 580   switch to SYSV-format, which has a number of advantages.
 581
 582 * The strip and copy programs now have options to remove debug-symbols only
 583   and/or local symbols only.  They now also support long options.
 584
 585 \f
 586 Copyright (C) 2012-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 587
 588 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 589 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 590 notice and this notice are preserved.
 591
 592 Local variables:
 593 fill-column: 79
 594 End: