README for BINUTILS 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). 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 2.36 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 will need a C99 compliant compiler and library. You can just do: cd binutils-XXX ./configure [options] make make install # copies the programs files into /usr/local/bin # by default. This will configure and build all the libraries as well as the assembler, the binutils, and the linker. If you have GNU make, we recommend building in a different directory: mkdir objdir cd objdir ../binutils-XXX/configure [options] make make install This relies on the VPATH feature of GNU make. By default, the binutils will be configured to support the system on which they are built. When doing cross development, use the --target configure option to specify a different target, eg: ./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=powerpc-linux,rs6000-aix The name 'all' compiles in support for all valid BFD targets: ./configure --enable-targets=all On 32-bit hosts though, this support will be restricted to 32-bit 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 indicate that only certain libraries should be built shared; for example, --enable-shared=bfd. The only potential shared libraries in a binutils release are bfd and opcodes. The binutils will be linked against the shared libraries. The build step will attempt to place the correct library in the run-time search path for the binaries. However, in some cases, after you install the binaries, you may have to set an environment variable, normally 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 ==================== If your system does not already have an 'ar' program, the normal binutils build process will not work. In this case, run configure as usual. Before running make, run this script: #!/bin/sh MAKE_PROG="${MAKE-make}" MAKE="${MAKE_PROG} AR=true LINK=true" export MAKE ${MAKE} $* all-libiberty ${MAKE} $* all-intl ${MAKE} $* all-bfd cd binutils MAKE="${MAKE_PROG}" export MAKE ${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 usual to build the complete binutils distribution. You do not need the ranlib program in order to build the distribution. Porting ======= 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-5.x) may also be of help. Reporting bugs ============== Please report bugs via https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi?product=binutils 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, 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 === This section was written by Klaus K"ampf . It describes how to build and install the binutils on openVMS (Alpha and Vax). (The BFD library only supports reading Vax object files.) Compiling the release: To compile the gnu binary utilities and the gnu assembler, you'll need DEC C or GNU C for openVMS/Alpha. You'll need *both* compilers on openVMS/Vax. Compiling with either DEC C or GNU C works on openVMS/Alpha only. Some of the opcodes and binutils files trap a bug in the DEC C optimizer, so these files must be compiled with /noopt. Compiling on openVMS/Vax is a bit complicated, as the bfd library traps a bug in GNU C and the gnu assembler a bug in (my version of) DEC C. I never tried compiling with VAX C. You further need GNU Make Version 3.76 or later. This is available at ftp.progis.de or any GNU archive site. The makefiles assume that gmake starts gnu make as a foreign command. If you're compiling with DEC C or VAX C, you must run $ @setup before starting gnu-make. This isn't needed with GNU C. On the Alpha you can choose the compiler by editing the toplevel makefile.vms. Either select CC=cc (for DEC C) or CC=gcc (for GNU C) Installing the release Provided that your directory setup conforms to the GNU on openVMS standard, you already have a concealed device named 'GNU_ROOT'. In this case, a simple $ gmake install suffices to copy all programs and libraries to the proper directories. Define the programs as foreign commands by adding these lines to your login.com: $ gas :== $GNU_ROOT:[bin]as.exe $ size :== $GNU_ROOT:[bin]size.exe $ nm :== $GNU_ROOT:[bin]nm.exe $ objdump :== $GNU_ROOT:[bin]objdump.exe $ strings :== $GNU_ROOT:[bin]strings.exe If you have a different directory setup, copy the binary utilities ([.binutils]size.exe, [.binutils]nm.exe, [.binutils]objdump.exe, and [.binutils]strings.exe) and the gnu assembler and preprocessor ([.gas]as.exe and [.gas]gasp.exe]) to a directory of your choice and define all programs as foreign commands. If you're satisfied with the compilation, you may want to remove unneeded objects and libraries: $ gmake clean If you have any problems or questions about the binutils on VMS, feel free to mail me at kkaempf@rmi.de. Copyright (C) 2012-2023 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.