binutils/NEWS

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