GNU Binutils is a free, open source and very useful software project that has been designed from the offset to provide a collection of libraries, classes and command-line programs for manipulating binary files under any GNU/Linux operating system.
Includes a wide range of handy utilities
As mentioned, the GNU Binutils package is not a single program, it’s a collection of binary tools necessary to any Linux developer. It includes ld, the GNU linker, as, the GNU assembler, addr2line to converts addresses into file names and line numbers, ar, a utility for creating, modifying and extracting from archives, as well as strip to discards symbols.
Additionally, the c++filt program is also included to filter encoded C++ symbols, gprof displays profiling information, nlmconv converts object code into an NLM, nm lists symbols from object files, objcopy copies and translates object files, objdump displays information from object files, and ranlib generates an index to the contents of an archive.
Among other binary tools included in the GNU Binutils package, we can mention strings for listing printable strings from files, readelf for displaying information from any ELF format object file, size for listing the section sizes of an object or archive file, as well as windres, a compiler for Windows resource files.
Getting started with GNU Binutils
Installing the GNU Binutils project on your GNU/Linux operating system (32-bit and 64-bit flavors are supported at this time) is an easy task, as all you have to do is to open the built-in package manager application (e.g. Synaptic Package Manager or Ubuntu Software Center), use the ‘binutils’ search string to find it in the main software repositories and install it with a couple of mouse clicks. As an alternative, you can install the latest version using the source package distributed for free on Softoware.
What is new in this release:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version 2.30:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version :
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version 2.28:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version 2.27:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version 2.26.1:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version 2.26:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version 2.25.1:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
What is new in version 2.25:
- Add --interleave-width option to objcopy to allowing copying a range of bytes from the input to the output with the --interleave option.
- Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
- Readelf can now display ARM unwind tables (.ARM.exidx / .ARM.extab) using the -u / --unwind option.
- Add --dyn-syms to readelf to dump dynamic symbol table.
- A new tool - elfedit - has been added to directly manipulate ELF format binaries.
- Add to dlltool .def file feature of aliasing PE internal symbol name by '== ' option.
- Add a new command line option -a / --addresses to addr2line to display the address before function name or source filename.
- Add a new command line option -p / --pretty-print to addr2line to have a more human readable output.
- The hppa/som targets can now be compiled on any host.
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