This is a beta release of a completely rewritten binutils distribution.
(Rewritten since binutils 1.x, that is.)

The linker (ld) has been moved into a separate directory, which should be
../ld.  Linker-specific notes are in ../ld/README.

As of version 2.5, the assembler (as) is also included in this package, in
../gas.  Assembler-specific notes can be found in ../gas/README.

Recent changes are in ./NEWS, ../ld/NEWS, and ../gas/NEWS.

Unpacking and Installation -- quick overview
============================================

When you unpack the binutils-2.8.tar.gz file, you'll get a directory
called something like `binutils-2.8', which contains various files and
directories.  Most of the files in the top directory are for
information and for configuration.  The actual source code is in
subdirectories.

To build binutils, you can just do:

	cd binutils-2.8
	./configure [ --enable-targets='target1,target2...' ]
	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.

The --enable-targets option adds support for more binary file
formats besides the default.  By default, support for only the
selected target file format is compiled in.  To add support for more
formats, list them as the argument to --enable-targets, separated by
commas.  For example:

	./configure --enable-targets=sun3,rs6000-aix,decstation

The name 'all' compiles in support for all valid BFD targets (this was
the default in releases before 2.3):

	./configure --enable-targets=all

The binutils can be used in a cross-development environment.
The file etc/configure.texi contains more information.

You can also specify the --enable-shared option when you run
configure.  This will build the BFD and opcodes libraries as shared
libraries.  This will only work on certain systems, and currently will
only work when compiling with gcc.  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 runtime 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.

If you specify --enable-commonbfdlib as well as --enable-shared, then
a single shared library will be built containing the bfd, opcodes, and
libiberty libraries.  It will be installed as libbfd.  This option
will make the binutils programs as small as possible.

To build under openVMS/AXP, see the file makefile.vms in the top level
directory.

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=${MAKE-make}
${MAKE} $* AR=true all-libiberty
${MAKE} $* AR=true all-bfd
cd binutils
${MAKE} $* ADDL_DEPS='$(BULIBS)' ADDL_LIBS='$(BULIBS) ../bfd/*.o `cat ../libiberty/required-list ../libiberty/needed-list | sed -e "s,\([^ ][^ ]*\),../libiberty/\1,g"`' 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-2.8 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.

Reporting bugs
==============
Send bug reports and patches to bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu.  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.