binutils Newspaper
JULY 29, 2026
elf Proposed

BFD changes for nanoMIPS support.

Adds nanoMIPS architecture support to the BFD library.

This patch integrates nanoMIPS architecture support into the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library. It updates build system files (Makefile.am, configure.ac), adds new BFD-specific files for nanoMIPS (elfnn-nanomips.c, elfxx-nanomips.c), and defines nanoMIPS relocations. The changes enable BFD to handle nanoMIPS ELF object files.

In Details

Adds nanoMIPS support to the BFD library, enabling it to read and write nanoMIPS object files. This involves updating BFD's build system and configuration to recognize nanoMIPS targets (e.g., nanomips32-elf, nanomips64-elf), defining nanoMIPS-specific ELF structures and relocations, and creating new C source files for nanoMIPS ELF handling.

For Context
BFD
Binary File Descriptor library. A low-level library used by binutils to provide a consistent interface for reading and writing various object file formats.
ELF
Executable and Linkable Format, a common standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps.
relocation
Information in an object file that describes how to modify certain symbols (like addresses) when linking it with other object files or loading it into memory.
EM_NANOMIPS
The ELF machine type identifier for the nanoMIPS architecture.
Filed Under: BFDELFnanomipsbuild system