binutils/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2 * Add --source-comment[=<txt>] option to objdump which if present,
   3   provides a prefix to source code lines displayed in a disassembly.
   4
   5 * Add --verilog-data-width option to objcopy for verilog targets to control
   6   width of data elements in verilog hex format.
   7
   8 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
   9   instructions.
  10
  11 * The separate debug info file options of readelf (--debug-dump=links
  12   and --debug-dump=follow) and objdump (--dwarf=links and
  13   --dwarf=follow-links) will now display and/or follow multiple links if
  14   more than one are present in a file.  (This usually happens when gcc's
  15   -gsplit-dwarf option is used).
  16
  17   In addition objdump's --dwarf=follow-links now also affects its other
  18   display options, so that for example, when combined with --syms it will
  19   cause the symbol tables in any linked debug info files to also be
  20   displayed.  In addition when combined with --disassemble the --dwarf=
  21   follow-links option will ensure that any symbol tables in the linked
  22   files are read and used when disassembling code in the main file.
  23
  24  * Add support for dumping types encoded in the Compact Type Format
  25    to objdump and readelf.
  26
  27 Changes in 2.32:
  28
  29 * The addr2line, c++filt, nm and objdump tools now have a limit on the
  30   maximum amount of recursion that is allowed whilst demangling strings.
  31   The value for this limit is defined by the DEMANGLE_RECRUSE_LIMIT
  32   constant declared in the include/demangle.h header file.  At the time
  33   of writing this constant has the value of 2048.
  34
  35   The --no-recurse-limit option can be used to remove the limit, restoring
  36   the behaviour of earlier versions of these tools.  This may be needed in
  37   order to dmangle truly complicated names, but it also leaves the tools
  38   vulnerable to stack exhaustion from maliciously constructed mangled names.
  39
  40 * Objdump's --disassemble option can now take a parameter, specifying the
  41   starting symbol for disassembly.  Disassembly will continue from this
  42   symbol up to the next symbol or the end of the function.
  43
  44 * The MIPS port now supports the Loongson 2K1000 processor which implements
  45   the MIPS64r2 ISA, the Loongson-mmi ASE, Loongson-cam ASE, Loongson-ext ASE,
  46   Loongson-ext2 ASE and MSA ASE instructions. Add -march=gs264e option for
  47   Loongson 2K1000 processor.
  48
  49 * The MIPS port now supports the Loongson 3A2000/3A3000 processor which
  50   implements the MIPS64r2 ISA, the Loongson-mmi ASE, Loongson-cam ASE,
  51   Loongson-ext ASE and Loongson-ext2 ASE instructions. Add -march=gs464e
  52   option for Loongson 3A2000/3A3000 processor.
  53
  54 * The MIPS port now supports the Loongson 3A1000 processor, aka Loongson3a,
  55   which implements the MIPS64r2 ISA, the Loongson-mmi ASE, Loongson-cam ASE
  56   and Loongson-ext ASE instructions. Add -march=gs464 option for Loongson
  57   3A1000 processor, The -march=loongson3a is an alias of -march=gs464 for
  58   compatibility.
  59
  60 * The size tool now has a new output format '--format=GNU' or '-G'.  The
  61   results are displayed in a similar manor to the default berkeley layout,
  62   except read-only data is counted in the data column, not the text column.
  63   Additionally the total is only included once.
  64
  65 Changes in 2.31:
  66
  67 * Add support for disassembling netronome Flow Processor (NFP) firmware files.
  68
  69 * The AArch64 port now supports showing disassembly notes which are emitted
  70   when inconsistencies are found with the instruction that may result in the
  71   instruction being invalid.  These can be turned on with the option -M notes
  72   to objdump.
  73
  74 * The AArch64 port now emits warnings when a combination of an instruction and
  75   a named register could be invalid.
  76
  77 * Added O modifier to ar to display member offsets inside an archive
  78
  79 Changes in 2.30:
  80
  81 * Add --debug-dump=links option to readelf and --dwarf=links option to objdump
  82   which displays the contents of any .gnu_debuglink or .gnu_debugaltlink
  83   sections.
  84
  85   Add a --debug-dump=follow-links option to readelf and a --dwarf=follow-links
  86   option to objdump which causes indirect links into separate debug info files
  87   to be followed when dumping other DWARF sections.
  88
  89 Changes in 2.29:
  90
  91 * The MIPS port now supports microMIPS eXtended Physical Addressing (XPA)
  92   instructions for assembly and disassembly.
  93
  94 * The MIPS port now supports the microMIPS Release 5 ISA for assembly and
  95   disassembly.
  96
  97 * The MIPS port now supports the Imagination interAptiv MR2 processor,
  98   which implements the MIPS32r3 ISA, the MIPS16e2 ASE as well as a couple
  99   of implementation-specific regular MIPS and MIPS16e2 ASE instructions.
 100
 101 * The SPARC port now supports the SPARC M8 processor, which implements the
 102   Oracle SPARC Architecture 2017.
 103
 104 * The MIPS port now supports the MIPS16e2 ASE for assembly and disassembly.
 105
 106 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX.
 107
 108 * Add support for the wasm32 ELF conversion of the WebAssembly file format.
 109
 110 * Add --inlines option to objdump, which extends the --line-numbers option
 111   so that inlined functions will display their nesting information.
 112
 113 * Add --merge-notes options to objcopy to reduce the size of notes in
 114   a binary file by merging and deleting redundant notes.
 115
 116 * Add support for locating separate debug info files using the build-id
 117   method, where the separate file has a name based upon the build-id of
 118   the original file.
 119
 120 Changes in 2.28:
 121
 122 * This version of binutils fixes a problem with PowerPC VLE 16A and 16D
 123   relocations which were functionally swapped, for example,
 124   R_PPC_VLE_HA16A performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16D while R_PPC_VLE_HA16D
 125   performed like R_PPC_VLE_HA16A.  This could have been fixed by
 126   renumbering relocations, which would keep object files created by an
 127   older version of gas compatible with a newer ld.  However, that would
 128   require an ABI update, affecting other assemblers and linkers that
 129   create and process the relocations correctly.  It is recommended that
 130   all VLE object files be recompiled, but ld can modify the relocations
 131   if --vle-reloc-fixup is passed to ld.  If the new ld command-line
 132   option is not used, ld will ld warn on finding relocations inconsistent
 133   with the instructions being relocated.
 134
 135 * The nm program has a new command-line option (--with-version-strings)
 136   which will display a symbol's version information, if any, after the
 137   symbol's name.
 138
 139 * The ARC port of objdump now accepts a -M option to specify the extra
 140   instruction class(es) that should be disassembled.
 141
 142 * The --remove-section option for objcopy and strip now accepts section
 143   patterns starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching
 144   section.  A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections
 145   matched by an earlier --remove-section pattern.
 146
 147 * The --only-section option for objcopy now accepts section patterns
 148   starting with an exclamation point to indicate a non-matching section.
 149   A non-matching section is removed from the set of sections matched by
 150   an earlier --only-section pattern.
 151
 152 * New --remove-relocations=SECTIONPATTERN option for objcopy and strip.
 153   This option can be used to remove sections containing relocations.
 154   The SECTIONPATTERN is the section to which the relocations apply, not
 155   the relocation section itself.
 156
 157 Changes in 2.27:
 158
 159 * Add a configure option, --enable-64-bit-archive, to force use of a
 160   64-bit format when creating an archive symbol index.
 161
 162 * Add --elf-stt-common= option to objcopy for ELF targets to control
 163   whether to convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type.
 164
 165 Changes in 2.26:
 166
 167 * Add option to objcopy to insert new symbols into a file:
 168   --add-symbol <name>=[<section>:]<value>[,<flags>]
 169
 170 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
 171
 172 * Extend objcopy --compress-debug-sections option to support
 173   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 174   targets.
 175
 176 * Add --update-section option to objcopy.
 177
 178 * Add --output-separator option to strings.
 179
 180 Changes in 2.25:
 181
 182 * Add --data option to strings to only print strings in loadable, initialized
 183   data sections.  Change the default behaviour to be --all, but add a new
 184   configure time option of --disable-default-strings-all to restore the old
 185   default behaviour.
 186
 187 * Add --include-all-whitespace to strings.
 188
 189 * Add --dump-section option to objcopy.
 190
 191 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 192
 193 Changes in 2.24:
 194
 195 * Objcopy now supports wildcard characters in command-line options that take
 196   section names.
 197
 198 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 199
 200 Changes in 2.23:
 201
 202 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 203
 204 * Add support for x64 Windows target of the delayed-load-library.
 205
 206 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 207
 208 Changes in 2.22:
 209
 210 * Add support for displaying the contents of .debug.macro sections.
 211
 212 * Add --preprocessor-arg option to windres to specify additional options
 213   passed to preprocessor.
 214
 215 * Add --dwarf-start and --dwarf-end to readelf and objdump.  These are used by
 216   the new Emacs mode, see dwarf-mode.el.
 217
 218 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 219
 220 changes in 2.21:
 221
 222 * Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of
 223   bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
 224
 225 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 226
 227 * Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using
 228   the -u / --unwind option.
 229
 230 * Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
 231
 232 * A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format
 233   binaries.
 234
 235 * Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by
 236   '== <ID>' option.
 237
 238 * Add a new command-line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the
 239   address before function name or source filename.
 240
 241 * Add a new command-line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have
 242   a more human readable output.
 243
 244 * The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
 245
 246 Changes in 2.20:
 247
 248 * Add support for delay importing to dlltool.  Use the --output-delaylib <file>
 249   switch to create a delay-import library.  The resulting app will load the dll
 250   as soon as the first function is called.  It will link to __delayLoadHelper2()
 251   from the static delayimp library, which will import LoadLibraryA and
 252   GetProcAddress from kernel32.
 253
 254 * Add a new command-line option, --insn-width=WIDTH, to objdump to specify
 255   number of bytes to be displayed on a single line when disassembling
 256   instructions.
 257
 258 * Readelf can now display the relocated contents of a section as a sequence
 259   of bytes via the --relocated-dump=<name|number> command-line option.
 260
 261 * The gprof program has been given a new command-line option:
 262   --external-symbols-table=<filename> which reads in symbols from a specified
 263   file.
 264
 265 * The plugin target has been added to bfd. It can load the same shared objects
 266   used by gold and uses them to provide basic support for new file formats.
 267
 268 * The verilog memory hex dump file format is now supported as an output format
 269   for objcopy.
 270
 271 * Add --file-alignment, --heap, --image-base, --section-alignment,
 272   --stack and --subsystem command-line options to objcopy, which will
 273   set PE optional header.
 274
 275 * Option --dwarf/-W of objdump is now as flexible as readelf --debug-dump/-w.
 276
 277 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 278   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 279   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 280   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 281
 282 * Added --prefix=PREFIX and --prefix-strip=LEVEL switches to objdump to
 283   add absolute paths for -S.
 284
 285 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to dlltool to allow fall-
 286   back to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 287
 288 * Added --identify-strict switch to cause --identify <implib> to
 289   report an error when the import library is associated with
 290   multiple DLLs.
 291
 292 * Added --identify <implib> option to dlltool, which determines the
 293   name of the DLL associated with the specified <implib>.
 294
 295 * Support for PowerPC booke64 instructions has been removed.  The assembler no
 296   longer accepts -mbooke32 or -mbooke64 and the disassembler no longer accepts
 297   -Mbooke32 or -Mbooke64.  Instead, -mbooke and -Mbooke should be used.
 298
 299 Changes in 2.19:
 300
 301 * Added -wL switch to dump decoded contents of .debug_line.
 302
 303 * Added support for "thin" archives which contain pathnames pointing to
 304   object files rather than the files themselves and which contain a
 305   flattened symbol index for all objects, and archives, which have been
 306   added to the archive.
 307
 308 * Added -F switch to objdump to include file offsets in the disassembly.
 309
 310 * Added -c switch to readelf to allow string dumps of archive symbol index.
 311
 312 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 313
 314 * Added -p switch to readelf to allow string dumps of sections.
 315
 316 Changes in 2.18:
 317
 318 * Resolved 37 coding problems in bfd including static array overruns, null
 319   pointer dereferences and use of a malloc buffer after it has been freed, as
 320   revealed by static analysis donated by Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
 321
 322 * The binutils sources are now released under version 3 of the GNU General
 323   Public License.
 324
 325 * A new tool "windmc" has been added for some targets.  This is a message
 326   compiler which attempts to be compatible with the MS version.
 327
 328 * Add codepage support to the windres tool.  It now supports many new
 329   resource types (e.g. MANIFEST, TOOLBAR, etc).  The output generation
 330   for binary files is done now via bfd itself.  The endianess problems
 331   for different hosts are solved.  Dumps of .res files can now be
 332   re-compiled by windres without lossing resources or compilation errors.
 333   Some problems on dialog resource translations are corrected.
 334
 335 * Add --extract-symbol command-line option to objcopy, which will
 336   strip everything out of an ordinary object file or executable except
 337   for its symbol table.  Files containing just symbols can be useful
 338   to some OSes.
 339
 340 Changes in 2.17:
 341
 342 * Add "-x NAME" to readelf in addition to "-x NUMBER".
 343
 344 * Add -i and -t switches to cxxfilt.  -i disables the display of implementation
 345   specific extra demangling information (if any) and -t disables the demangling
 346   of types.
 347
 348 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command lines of all tools, so
 349   that extra switches can be read from <file>.
 350
 351 * Add "-W/--dwarf" to objdump to display the contents of the DWARF
 352   debug sections.
 353
 354 * Add "-t/--section-details" to readelf to display section details.
 355   "-N/--full-section-name" is deprecated.
 356
 357 * powerpc-linux ld now supports a variant form of PLT and GOT for the security
 358   conscious.  This form will automatically be chosen when ld detects that all
 359   code in regular object files was generated by gcc -msecure-plt.  The old PLT
 360   and GOT may be forced by a new ld option, --bss-plt.
 361
 362 * Add "-i/--inlines" to addr2line to print enclosing scope information
 363   for inlined function chains, back to first non-inlined function.
 364
 365 * Add "-N/--full-section-name" to readelf to display full section name.
 366
 367 * Add "-M entry:<addr>" switch to objdump to specify a function entry address
 368   when disassembling VAX binaries.
 369
 370 * Add "--globalize-symbol <name>" and "--globalize-symbols <filename>" switches
 371   to objcopy to convert local symbols into global symbols.
 372
 373 * gprof now allows input files to have histogram records for
 374   several memory ranges, provided those ranges are disjoint.
 375
 376 Changes in 2.16:
 377
 378 * Add "-g/--section-groups" to readelf to display section groups.
 379
 380 * objcopy recognizes two new options --strip-unneeded-symbol and
 381   --strip-unneeded-symbols, namely for use together with the wildcard
 382   matching the original --strip-symbol/--strip-symbols provided, but
 383   retaining any symbols matching but needed by relocations.
 384
 385 * readelf can now display address ranges from .debug_range sections.  This
 386   happens automatically when a DW_AT_range attribute is encountered.  The
 387   command-line switch --debug-dump=Ranges (or -wR) can also be used to display
 388   the contents of the .debug_range section.
 389
 390 * nm and objdump now have a switch "--special-syms" to enable the displaying of
 391   symbols which the target considers to be special.  By default these symbols
 392   are no longer displayed.  Currently the only special symbols are the Mapping
 393   symbols used by the ARM port to mark transitions between text and data and
 394   between ARM and THUMB code.
 395
 396 * dlltool has a switch "--ext-prefix-alias <prefix>" to generate additional
 397   import and export symbols with <preifx> prepended to them.
 398
 399 Changes in 2.15:
 400
 401 * objcopy for MIPS targets now accepts "-M no-aliases" as an option to the
 402   disassembler to print the "raw" mips instruction mnemonic instead of some
 403   pseudo instruction name.  I.E. print "daddu" or "or" instead of "move",
 404   "sll" instead of "nop", etc.
 405
 406 * objcopy and strip can now take wildcard patterns in symbol names specified on
 407   the command line provided that the --wildcard switch is used to enable them.
 408
 409 * readelf can now parse archives.
 410
 411 * objdump now accepts --debugging-tags to print the debug information in a
 412   format compatible with ctags tool.
 413
 414 * objcopy and strip now accept --only-keep-debug to create a file containing
 415   those sections that would be stripped out by --strip-debug.  The idea is that
 416   this can be used in conjunction with the --add-gnu-debuglink switch to create
 417   a two part program distribution - one a stripped executable and the other the
 418   debugging info.
 419
 420 * objcopy now accepts --add-gnu-debuglink=<file> to insert a .gnu_debuglink
 421   section into a (presumably stripped) executable.  This allows the debug
 422   information for the file to be held in a separate file.
 423
 424 * BFD marks the sections .comment and .note as 'n' in the BSD/POSIX
 425   single-character representation.  This can be checked by running nm
 426   with the -a switch.
 427
 428 Changes in 2.14:
 429
 430 * Added --info switch to objcopy and strip.
 431
 432 * Support for Vitesse IQ2000 added by Red Hat.
 433
 434 * Added 'S' encoding to strings to allow the display of 8-bit characters.
 435
 436 * Added --prefix-symbols=<text>, --prefix-sections=<text> and
 437   --prefix-alloc-sections=<text> to objcopy.
 438
 439 * readelf can handle the extensions to the DWARF2 spec used by the Unified
 440   Parallel C compiler.
 441
 442 * BFD no longer declares a "boolean" type, to avoid clashes with other
 443   headers that declare the same.  Users of BFD should replace boolean,
 444   false and true, with int, 0 and 1, or define their own boolean type.
 445
 446 * Support for IP2K added by Denis Chertykov.
 447
 448 Changes in 2.13:
 449
 450 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 451   and FR500 included.
 452
 453 Changes in version 2.12:
 454
 455 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 456
 457 * size: Add --totals to display summary of sizes (Berkeley format only).
 458
 459 * readelf: Add --wide option to not break section header or segment listing
 460   lines to fit into 80 columns.
 461
 462 * strings: Add --encoding to display wide character strings.  By Markus Kuhn.
 463
 464 * objcopy: Add --rename-section to change section names.
 465
 466 * readelf: Support added for DWARF 2.1 extensions.  Support added for
 467   displaying the contents of .debug.macinfo sections.
 468
 469 * New command-line switches added to objcopy to allow symbols to be kept as
 470   global symbols, and also to specify files containing lists of such symbols.
 471   by Honda Hiroki.
 472
 473 * Support for OpenRISC by Johan Rydberg.
 474
 475 * New command-line switch to objcopy --alt-machine-code which creates a binary
 476   with an alternate machine code if one is defined in the architecture
 477   description.  Only supported for ELF targets.  By Alexandre Oliva.
 478
 479 * New command-line switch to objcopy -B (or --binary-architecture) which sets
 480   the architecture of the output file to the given argument.  This option only
 481   makes sense, if the input target is binary.  Otherwise it is ignored.
 482   By Stefan Geuken.
 483
 484 * Support for PDP-11 by Lars Brinkhoff.
 485
 486 Changes in binutils 2.11:
 487
 488 * Add support for ARM v5t and v5te architectures and Intel's XScale ARM
 489   extenstions.
 490
 491 * Add --srec-len and --srec-forceS3 command-line switch to objcopy.
 492   By Luciano Gemme.
 493
 494 * Support for the MIPS32, by Anders Norlander.
 495
 496 * Support for the i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 497
 498 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 499
 500 Changes in binutils 2.10:
 501
 502 * Support for 64-bit ELF on HPPA.
 503
 504 * New command-line switch to objdump --file-start-context which shows the
 505   entire file contents up to the source line first encountered for a given
 506   file.
 507
 508 * New command-line switch to objdump -M (or --disassembler-options) which takes
 509   a parameter which can then be interpreted on a per-target basis by the
 510   disassembler.  Used by ARM targets to select register name sets, ISA, APCS or
 511   raw verions.
 512
 513 * objdump support for -mi386:intel which causes disassembly to be displayed
 514   with intel syntax.
 515
 516 * New program: readelf.  This displays the contents of ELF format files,
 517   regardless of target machine.
 518
 519 * objcopy now takes --change-section-lma, --change-section-vma, and
 520   --change-section-address options.  The old --adjust-section-vma option is
 521   equivalent to --change-section-address.  The other --adjust-* options are now
 522   renamed to --change-*, although --adjust-* continues to work.
 523
 524 * objcopy has a --redefine-sym option that lets you rename symbols.
 525
 526 * objcopy now takes a -j/--only-section option to copy only the specified
 527   sections.
 528
 529 * dlltool now supports the IMPORTS command.
 530
 531 * dlltool now takes --export-all-symbols, --no-export-all-symbols,
 532   --exclude-symbols, and --no-default-excludes options.
 533
 534 Changes in binutils 2.9:
 535
 536 * Added windres program, which can be used to manipulate resources in WIN32
 537   files as used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
 538
 539 * The objcopy --gap-fill and --pad-to options operate on the LMA rather than
 540   the VMA of the sections.
 541
 542 * Added S modifier to ar to not build a symbol table.
 543
 544 Changes in binutils 2.8:
 545
 546 * The objdump disassembly format has been changed, and hopefully improved.  Use
 547   the new --prefix-addresses option to get the old format.  There are also new
 548   --disassemble-zeroes and --no-show-raw-insn options which affect disassembler
 549   output.
 550
 551 * Formats may now be specified as configuration triplets.  For example,
 552   objdump -b i386-pc-linux.  The triplets are not passed through config.sub,
 553   so they must be in canonical form.
 554
 555 * Added new addr2line program.  This uses the debugging information to convert
 556   an address into a file name and line number within a program.
 557
 558 * Added --change-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 559
 560 * Added --weaken argument to objcopy.
 561
 562 * objdump --dynamic-reloc now works on ELF executables and shared libraries.
 563
 564 * Added --adjust-vma option to objdump.
 565
 566 * Added -C/--demangle option to objdump.
 567
 568 * Added -p/--preserve-dates option to strip and objcopy.
 569
 570 Changes in binutils 2.7:
 571
 572 * Added --enable-shared and --enable-commonbfdlib options to configure.
 573
 574 * Added --debugging argument to objdump and objcopy.
 575
 576 * Added --defined-only argument to nm.
 577
 578 * Added --remove-leading-char argument to objcopy.
 579
 580 * The objdump --line-numbers option is now meaningful with --reloc.
 581
 582 * Added --line-numbers option to nm.
 583
 584 * Added --endian/-EB/-EL option to objdump.
 585
 586 * Added support for Alpha OpenVMS/AXP.
 587
 588 Changes in binutils 2.6:
 589
 590 * Added -N/--strip-symbol and -K/--keep-symbol arguments to strip and objcopy.
 591
 592 * Added several arguments to objcopy to provide some control over how the new
 593   file is laid out in memory.  Also added binary output format to BFD to permit
 594   generating plain binary files.
 595
 596 * Added --start-address and --stop-address options to objdump.
 597
 598 * ar and ranlib now work on AIX.  The tools are now built by default on AIX.
 599
 600 Changes in binutils 2.5:
 601
 602 * Changed objdump -dr to dump the relocs interspersed with the assembly
 603   listing, for a more useful listing of relocatable files.
 604
 605 * Changed objdump -d/--disassemble to only disassemble SEC_CODE sections.
 606   Added -D/--disassemble-all option to disassemble all sections.
 607
 608 * Added --size-sort option to nm.
 609
 610 * strip and objcopy should now be able to handle dynamically linked ELF
 611   executables.
 612
 613 Changes in binutils 2.4:
 614
 615 * Support for HP-PA (by Jeff Law), i386 Mach (by David Mackenzie), RS/6000 and
 616   PowerPC (except ar and ranlib; by Ian Taylor).
 617
 618 * Support for Irix 5.
 619
 620 * Programs `strip' and `objcopy' will not attempt to write dynamically linked
 621   ELF output files, since BFD currently can't create them properly.
 622
 623 Changes in binutils 2.3:
 624
 625 * A new --stabs argument has been added to objdump to dump stabs sections in
 626   ELF and COFF files.
 627
 628 * A new program, nlmconv, has been added.  It can convert object files into
 629   Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
 630
 631 * The strings program has been added.
 632
 633 Changes in binutils 2.2:
 634
 635 * The 'copy' program has been renamed to 'objcopy', for consistency with
 636   'objdump', and because 'copy' might more plausibly be used as a synonym for
 637   'cp'.
 638
 639 * The new stand-alone program c++filt is a filter that converts encoded
 640   (mangled) C++ assembly-level identifiers to user-level names.  (Note: This
 641   may get moved to the gcc distribution.)
 642
 643 * nm -o on an archive now prefixes each line with the archive name, matching
 644   the output from BSD nm.
 645
 646 * ar (and ld) can now read (but not write) BSD4.4-style archives.
 647
 648 * New support for H8500, Z8000, and the Hitach SH.
 649
 650 * Dis-assembler interface changed to allow sharing with gdb.
 651
 652 * There is new Elf code, but it is not yet ready for general use.
 653
 654 * There is the beginnings of a test suite.
 655
 656 Changes in binutils 2.1:
 657
 658 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the other utilities
 659   should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.  Please let us know how well this works.
 660
 661 * ar now automatically creates a symbol table (a __.SYMDEF member, in the BSD
 662   version), if there are any object files in the archive.  So running ranlib is
 663   now redundant (unless the non-standard q command is used).  This is required
 664   for Posix.2 conformance.
 665
 666 * The archive-reading code now reads both BSD-style and SYSV-style archives
 667   independently of the selected target format.  This is to encourage people to
 668   switch to SYSV-format, which has a number of advantages.
 669
 670 * The strip and copy programs now have options to remove debug-symbols only
 671   and/or local symbols only.  They now also support long options.
 672
 673 \f
 674 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 675
 676 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 677 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 678 notice and this notice are preserved.
 679
 680 Local variables:
 681 fill-column: 79
 682 End: