binutils/NEWS

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