GNU Binutils 2.39 Released

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Everyone,

We are pleased to announce that version 2.39 of the GNU Binutils project
sources have been released and are now available for download at:

  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils
  https://sourceware.org/pub/binutils/releases/

  sha256 checksums:
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    d677fd7b597c8dcb85030233deac4296034df92d548b2c1e412023f16495436d  binutils-2.39.tar.bz2.sig
    d12ea6f239f1ffe3533ea11ad6e224ffcb89eb5d01bbea589e9158780fa11f10  binutils-2.39.tar.gz
    465b1f87e1cc3c724864087e26d2de736dd08bfe4d1761e7f7681665e63ee244  binutils-2.39.tar.gz.sig
    5ab51668874d8533201b8edd2edb5e5d81d588205c6da300c8919bd7cf8664e8  binutils-2.39.tar.lz
    bd252be26a70822c055c89390206d16d5704416094da8d24fd72efbab7e20005  binutils-2.39.tar.lz.sig
    645c25f563b8adc0a81dbd6a41cffbf4d37083a382e02d5d3df4f65c09516d00  binutils-2.39.tar.xz
    1b63c8b51f3e7762bdcd51985deff1e66249b5cda0e849ef960ce1495320c932  binutils-2.39.tar.xz.sig

This release contains numerous bug fixes, and also the following new
features:

  * The ELF linker will now generate a warning message if the stack is made
    executable.  Similarly it will warn if the output binary contains a
    segment with all three of the read, write and execute permission
    bits set.  These warnings are intended to help developers identify
    programs which might be vulnerable to attack via these executable
    memory regions.

    The warnings are enabled by default but can be disabled via a command
    line option.  It is also possible to build a linker with the warnings
    disabled, should that be necessary.
    
  * The ELF linker now supports a --package-metadata option that allows
    embedding a JSON payload in accordance to the Package Metadata
    specification. 

  * In linker scripts it is now possible to use TYPE=<type> in an output
    section description to set the section type value.

  * The objdump program now supports coloured/colored syntax
    highlighting of its disassembler output for some architectures.
    (Currently: AVR, RiscV, s390, x86, x86_64).

  * The nm program now supports a --no-weak/-W option to make it ignore
    weak symbols.

  * The readelf and objdump programs now support a -wE option to prevent
    them from attempting to access debuginfod servers when following
    links.

  * The objcopy program's --weaken, --weaken-symbol, and
    --weaken-symbols options now works with unique symbols as well.

Our thanks go out to all of the binutils contributors, past and
present, for helping to make this release possible.

Cheers
  Nick Clifton
  GNU Binutils Release Manager