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