These are the GNU binutils. These are utilities of use when dealing
with binary files, either object files or executables. These tools
-consist of the linker (ld), the assembler (gas), and the profiler
-(gprof) each of which have their own sub-directory named after them.
-There is also a collection of other binary tools, including the
-disassembler (objdump) in this directory. These tools make use of a
-pair of libraries (bfd and opcodes) and a common set of header files
-(include).
+consist of the linkers (ld and gold), the assembler (gas), and the
+profiler (gprof and gprofng) each of which have their own
+sub-directory named after them. There is also a collection of other
+binary tools, including the disassembler (objdump) in this directory.
+These tools make use of a pair of libraries (bfd and opcodes) and a
+common set of header files (include).
There are README and NEWS files in most of the program sub-directories
which give more information about those specific programs.
+Copyright Notices
+=================
+
+Copyright years on binutils source files may be listed using range
+notation, e.g., 1991-2021, indicating that every year in the range,
+inclusive, is a copyrightable year that could otherwise be listed
+individually.
+
+
Unpacking and Installation -- quick overview
============================================
When you unpack the binutils archive file, you will get a directory
called something like `binutils-XXX', where XXX is the number of the
-release. (Probably 2.11.2 or higher). This directory contains
+release. (Probably 2.36 or higher). This directory contains
various files and sub-directories. Most of the files in the top
directory are for information and for configuration. The actual
source code is in sub-directories.
-To build binutils, you can just do:
+To build binutils you will need a C99 compliant compiler and library.
+You can just do:
cd binutils-XXX
./configure [options]
This will configure and build all the libraries as well as the
assembler, the binutils, and the linker.
+Note - if you have obtained the sources by checking out a copy from
+the git repository then you will have both the binutils and GDB
+sources in one place. In this case you may wish to add an option to
+the configure command line to stop it from configuring GDB. This will
+also stop the configure script from checking the libraries that are
+needed by GDB, but not by the binutils.
+
+ ./configure --disable-gdb
+
+Since the configure script can be quite verbose, you may also
+want to add the --quiet option to reduce the amount of output. ie:
+
+ ./configure --quiet
+
If you have GNU make, we recommend building in a different directory:
mkdir objdir
which they are built. When doing cross development, use the --target
configure option to specify a different target, eg:
- ./configure --target=foo-elf
+ ./configure --target=powerpc64le-linux
The --enable-targets option adds support for more binary file formats
besides the default. List them as the argument to --enable-targets,
separated by commas. For example:
- ./configure --enable-targets=sun3,rs6000-aix,decstation
+ ./configure --enable-targets=powerpc-linux,rs6000-aix
The name 'all' compiles in support for all valid BFD targets:
target unless the --enable-64-bit-bfd option is also used:
./configure --enable-64-bit-bfd --enable-targets=all
-
+
You can also specify the --enable-shared option when you run
configure. This will build the BFD and opcodes libraries as shared
libraries. You can use arguments with the --enable-shared option to
LD_LIBRARY_PATH, so that the system can find the installed libbfd
shared library.
+On hosts that support shared system libraries the binutils will be
+linked against them. If you have static versions of the system
+libraries installed as well and you wish to create static binaries
+instead then use the LDFLAGS environment variable, like this:
+
+ ../binutils-XXX/configure LDFLAGS="--static" [more options]
+
+Note: the two dashes are important. The binutils make use of the
+libtool script which has a special interpretation of "-static" when it
+is in the LDFLAGS environment variable.
+
To build under openVMS/AXP, see the file makefile.vms in the top level
directory.
+Native Language Support
+=======================
+
+By default Native Language Support will be enabled for binutils. On
+some systems however this support is not present and can lead to error
+messages such as "undefined reference to `libintl_gettext'" when
+building these tools. If that happens the NLS support can be disabled
+by adding the --disable-nls switch to the configure line like this:
+
+ ../binutils-XXX/configure --disable-nls
+
+
If you don't have ar
====================
cd binutils
MAKE="${MAKE_PROG}"
export MAKE
-${MAKE} $* ar_DEPENDENCIES= ar_LDADD='../bfd/*.o `cat ../libiberty/required-list ../libiberty/needed-list | sed -e "s,\([^ ][^ ]*\),../libiberty/\1,g"` `if test -f ../intl/gettext.o; then echo '../intl/*.o'; fi`' ar
+${MAKE} $* ar_DEPENDENCIES= ar_LDADD='../bfd/*.o ../libiberty/*.o `if test -f ../intl/gettext.o; then echo '../intl/*.o'; fi`' ar
This script will build an ar program in binutils/ar. Move binutils/ar
into a directory on your PATH. After doing this, you can run make as
Porting
=======
-Binutils-2.11 supports many different architectures, but there
+Binutils-2.36 supports many different architectures, but there
are many more not supported, including some that were supported
by earlier versions. We are hoping for volunteers to improve this
situation.
The major effort in porting binutils to a new host and/or target
architecture involves the BFD library. There is some documentation
in ../bfd/doc. The file ../gdb/doc/gdbint.texinfo (distributed
-with gdb-4.x) may also be of help.
+with gdb-5.x) may also be of help.
Reporting bugs
==============
-Send bug reports and patches to:
+Please report bugs via
+
+ https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi?product=binutils
- bug-gnu-utils@gnu.org.
+Please include the following in bug reports:
+
+- A description of exactly what went wrong, and exactly what should have
+ happened instead.
+
+- The configuration name(s) given to the "configure" script. The
+ "config.status" file should have this information. This is assuming
+ you built binutils yourself. If you didn't build binutils youself,
+ then we need information regarding your machine and operating system,
+ and it may be more appropriate to report bugs to wherever you obtained
+ binutils.
+
+- The options given to the tool (gas, objcopy, ld etc.) at run time.
+
+- The actual input file that caused the problem.
Always mention the version number you are running; this is printed by
running any of the binutils with the --version option. We appreciate
-reports about bugs, but we do not promise to fix them.
+reports about bugs, but we do not promise to fix them, particularly so
+when the bug report is against an old version. If you are able, please
+consider building the latest tools from git to check that your bug has
+not already been fixed.
+
+When reporting problems about gas and ld, it's useful to provide a
+testcase that triggers the problem. In the case of a gas problem, we
+want input files to gas and command line switches used. The inputs to
+gas are _NOT_ .c or .i files, but rather .s files. If your original
+source was a C program, you can generate the .s file and see the command
+line options by passing -v -save-temps to gcc in addition to all the
+usual options you use. The reason we don't want C files is that we
+might not have a C compiler around for the target you use. While it
+might be possible to build a compiler, that takes considerable time and
+disk space, and we might not end up with exactly the same compiler you
+use.
+
+In the case of a ld problem, the input files are .o, .a and .so files,
+and possibly a linker script specified with -T. Again, when using gcc
+to link, you can see these files by adding options to the gcc command
+line. Use -v -save-temps -Wl,-t, except that on targets that use gcc's
+collect2, you would add -v -save-temps -Wl,-t,-debug. The -t option
+tells ld to print all files and libraries used, so that, for example,
+you can associate -lc on the ld command line with the actual libc used.
+Note that your simple two line C program to trigger a problem typically
+expands into several megabytes of objects by the time you include
+libraries.
+
+There is a limit to the size of attachments accepted by bugzilla. If
+compressing your testcase does not result in an acceptable size tar or
+zip file, please put large testcases somewhere on an ftp or web site.
+Better still, try to reduce the testcase, for example, try to develop
+a ld testcase that doesn't use system libraries. However, please be
+sure it is a complete testcase and that it really does demonstrate the
+problem. Also, don't bother paring it down if that will cause large
+delays in filing the bug report.
+
+If you expect to be contributing a large number of test cases, it would
+be helpful if you would look at the test suite included in the release
+(based on the Deja Gnu testing framework, available from the usual ftp
+sites) and write test cases to fit into that framework. This is
+certainly not required.
VMS
===
If you have any problems or questions about the binutils on VMS, feel
free to mail me at kkaempf@rmi.de.
+\f
+Copyright (C) 2012-2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+
+Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
+are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
+notice and this notice are preserved.
projects / thirdparty / binutils-gdb.git / blobdiff