binutils/NEWS

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