This release contains numerous bug fixes and improvements, along with
the following new features:
Assembler:
General:
* Add support for the LoongArch architecture.
* Add an option to control how multibyte characters are handled in
the assembler. Using the option warnings can be generated when
such characters are encountered in symbol names, or anywhere in
the input source file(s).
AArch64 and ARM:
* Add support for more system registers.
* Add support for Scalable Matrix Extension.
* Add support for Cortex-R52+, Cortex-A510, Cortex-A710,
Cortex-X2, Cortex-A710 cores.
* Add support for 'v8.7-a', 'v8.8-a', 'v9-a', 'v9.1-a',
'armv9.2-a' and 'armv9.3-a' architecture extensions.
X86:
* Add a command-line option to encode aligned vector move as
unaligned vector move.
* Add support for Intel AVX512_FP16 instructions.
* The outputs of .ds.x directive and .tfloat directive with hex
input have been reduced from 12 bytes to 10 bytes to match the
output of .tfloat directive.
Linker:
* Add support for the LoongArch architecture.
* Add -z pack-relative-relocs/-z no pack-relative-relocs to x86 ELF
linker to pack relative relocations in the DT_RELR section.
* Add -z indirect-extern-access/-z noindirect-extern-access to x86
ELF linker to control canonical function pointers and copy
relocation.
Other Binary Tools:
* elfedit: Add --output-abiversion option to update ABIVERSION.
* Tools which display symbols or strings (readelf, strings, nm,
objdump) have a new command line option which controls how unicode
characters are handled. By default they are treated as normal for
the tool. Using --unicode=locale will display them according to
the current locale. Using --unicode=hex will display them as hex
byte values, whilst --unicode=escape will display them as escape
sequences. In addition using --unicode=highlight will display
them as unicode escape sequences highlighted in red (if supported
by the output device).
* readelf -r dumps RELR relative relocations now.
* Support for efi-app-aarch64, efi-rtdrv-aarch64 and
efi-bsdrv-aarch64 has been added to objcopy in order to enable
UEFI development using binutils.
* ar: Add --thin for creating thin archives. -T is a deprecated
alias without diagnostics. In many ar implementations -T has a
different meaning, as specified by X/Open System Interface.
cdca656432