gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
   4
   5 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
   6   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
   7
   8 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
   9
  10 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  11   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  12   CVE-2020-0551.
  13
  14 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  15   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  16   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  17
  18 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  19
  20 Changes in 2.34:
  21
  22 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  23   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  24   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  25   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  26
  27 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  28
  29 * Add support for z80-elf target.
  30
  31 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
  32   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
  33   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
  34
  35 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
  36
  37 Changes in 2.33:
  38
  39 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
  40   instructions.
  41
  42 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
  43   instructions.
  44
  45 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
  46   instructions.
  47
  48 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
  49   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
  50   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
  51   option is not used to "no".
  52
  53 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
  54   processors.
  55
  56 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
  57   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
  58
  59 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
  60   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
  61   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
  62   encoding.
  63
  64 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
  65   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
  66
  67 Changes in 2.32:
  68
  69 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  70   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  71
  72 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  73   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  74   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  75   to "no".
  76
  77 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  78
  79 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  80
  81 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  82
  83 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  84
  85 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  86   ASE.
  87
  88 Changes in 2.31:
  89
  90 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  91   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  92   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  93
  94 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  95
  96 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  97
  98 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  99
 100 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 101   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 102   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 103   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 104   to "no".
 105
 106 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 107
 108 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 109   shorter instruction encoding.
 110
 111 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 112   x86 targets.
 113
 114 Changes in 2.30:
 115
 116 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 117
 118 Changes in 2.29:
 119
 120 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 121
 122 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 123
 124 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 125   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 126   that the registers are invalid.
 127
 128 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 129
 130 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 131   added to the ARM port.
 132
 133 Changes in 2.28:
 134
 135 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 136
 137 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 138
 139 Changes in 2.27:
 140
 141 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 142
 143 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 144   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 145
 146 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 147   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 148   port.
 149
 150 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 151   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 152   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 153
 154 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 155   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 156   default.  Default to no.
 157
 158 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 159   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 160
 161 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 162   based targets.
 163
 164 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 165   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 166   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 167
 168 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 169   whether to generate relax relocations.
 170
 171 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 172   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 173
 174 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 175
 176 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 177   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 178
 179 Changes in 2.26:
 180
 181 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 182   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 183
 184 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 185   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 186
 187 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 188   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 189   level languages.
 190
 191 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 192   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 193
 194 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 195   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 196   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 197
 198 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 199   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 200   been added to the ARM port.
 201
 202 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 203   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 204   targets.
 205
 206 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 207
 208 Changes in 2.25:
 209
 210 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 211
 212 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 213
 214 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 215   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 216
 217 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 218
 219 Changes in 2.24:
 220
 221 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 222
 223 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 224   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 225
 226 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 227
 228 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 229
 230 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 231
 232 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 233
 234 Changes in 2.23:
 235
 236 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 237
 238 * Add support for S12X processor.
 239
 240 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 241
 242 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 243
 244 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 245   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 246
 247 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 248
 249 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 250
 251 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 252
 253 Changes in 2.22:
 254
 255 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 256
 257 Changes in 2.21:
 258
 259 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 260
 261 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 262
 263 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 264   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 265   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 266   2.20.1.
 267
 268 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 269
 270 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 271   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 272   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 273   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 274
 275 Changes in 2.20:
 276
 277 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 278
 279 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 280   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 281   process.
 282
 283 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 284   in binary rather than text.
 285
 286 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 287
 288 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 289   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 290
 291 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 292
 293 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 294   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 295   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 296   the value.
 297
 298 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 299
 300 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 301
 302 Changes in 2.19:
 303
 304 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 305   tables without runtime relocation.
 306
 307 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 308   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 309
 310 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 311   targets.
 312
 313 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 314   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 315   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 316   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 317
 318 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 319   instructions with VEX prefix.
 320
 321 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 322
 323 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 324   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 325   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 326
 327 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 328   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 329
 330 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 331
 332 Changes in 2.18:
 333
 334 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 335
 336 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 337
 338 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 339   relocations.
 340
 341 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 342
 343 * Add support for Score target.
 344
 345 Changes in 2.17:
 346
 347 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 348
 349 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 350
 351 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 352
 353 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 354   switches can be read from <file>.
 355
 356 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 357   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 358   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 359
 360 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 361   documentation for how this works.
 362
 363 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 364   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 365   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 366
 367 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 368   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 369   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 370   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 371   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 372
 373 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 374   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 375   assembler.
 376
 377 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 378
 379 Changes in 2.16:
 380
 381 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 382
 383 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 384
 385 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 386   targets.
 387
 388 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 389   mode.
 390
 391 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 392
 393 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 394
 395 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 396   preferred debug format.
 397
 398 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 399
 400 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 401
 402 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 403   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 404
 405 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 406
 407 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 408   instrucitons.
 409
 410 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 411
 412 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 413   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 414
 415 Changes in 2.15:
 416
 417 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 418   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 419
 420 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 421
 422 * Added support for ARM V6.
 423
 424 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 425
 426 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 427
 428 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 429   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 430
 431 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 432   definitions created by ".req".
 433
 434 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 435
 436 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 437   information with GNU extensions.
 438
 439 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 440
 441 * Added support for v850e1.
 442
 443 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 444   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 445   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 446   switch disables the optimization.
 447
 448 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 449   existing -non_shared option.
 450
 451 Changes in 2.14:
 452
 453 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 454
 455 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 456
 457 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 458
 459 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 460   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 461
 462 * Support for SH2E added.
 463
 464 * GASP has now been removed.
 465
 466 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 467   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 468
 469 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 470
 471 Changes in 2.13:
 472
 473 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 474   and FR500 included.
 475
 476 * Support for DLX processor added.
 477
 478 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 479   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 480
 481 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 482   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 483   the currently specified base.
 484
 485 Changes in 2.12:
 486
 487 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 488
 489 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 490
 491 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 492   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 493   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 494   compatibility.
 495
 496 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 497   the ARM assembler.
 498
 499 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 500   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 501
 502 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 503   but still works for compatability.
 504
 505 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 506   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 507   -n will turn on the warning.
 508
 509 Changes in 2.11:
 510
 511 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 512
 513 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 514
 515 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 516
 517 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 518
 519 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 520
 521 * Support for IA-64.
 522
 523 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 524
 525 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 526
 527 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 528
 529 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 530   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 531   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 532
 533 Changes in 2.10:
 534
 535 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 536   operand when altering the flags field.
 537
 538 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 539
 540 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 541
 542 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 543
 544 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 545
 546 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 547
 548 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 549
 550 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 551
 552 * picoJava architecture support added.
 553
 554 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 555
 556 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 557   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 558
 559 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 560
 561 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 562
 563 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 564
 565 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 566   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 567   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 568   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 569
 570 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 571
 572 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 573
 574 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 575
 576 * i960 ELF support added.
 577
 578 * ARM ELF support added.
 579
 580 Changes in 2.9:
 581
 582 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 583
 584 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 585   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 586
 587 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 588
 589 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 590   listing.
 591
 592 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 593
 594 Changes in 2.8:
 595
 596 * BeOS support added.
 597
 598 * MIPS16 support added.
 599
 600 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 601
 602 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 603
 604 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 605   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 606
 607 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 608   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 609   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 610   all.
 611
 612 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 613
 614 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 615   conditionals in listings.
 616
 617 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 618   the symbol is already defined.
 619
 620 Changes in 2.7:
 621
 622 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 623   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 624   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 625   added.
 626
 627 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 628
 629 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 630
 631 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 632
 633 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 634
 635 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 636
 637 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 638   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 639   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 640   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 641
 642 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 643
 644 Changes in 2.6:
 645
 646 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 647
 648 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 649   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 650   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 651
 652 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 653
 654 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 655
 656 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 657
 658 Changes in 2.4:
 659
 660 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 661
 662 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 663
 664 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 665   debugging support.
 666
 667 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 668
 669 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 670   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 671   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 672   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 673
 674 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 675
 676 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 677   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 678
 679 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 680
 681 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 682   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 683
 684 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 685   Paul Kranenburg.
 686
 687 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 688   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 689
 690 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 691
 692 Changes in 2.3:
 693
 694 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 695
 696 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 697
 698 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 699   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 700   again too.
 701
 702 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 703   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 704   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 705   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 706   in the "dist" directory.
 707
 708 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 709   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 710   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 711
 712 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 713   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 714   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 715   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 716
 717 * Irix 5 support.
 718
 719 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 720   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 721
 722 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 723   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 724   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 725   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 726
 727 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 728   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 729   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 730   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 731
 732 Changes in 2.2:
 733
 734 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 735
 736 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 737   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 738   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 739   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 740   reliable.
 741
 742 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 743   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 744   messages about "internal errors".
 745
 746 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 747   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 748
 749 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 750   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 751   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 752   known.
 753
 754 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 755   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 756   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 757   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 758   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 759   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 760   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 761
 762 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 763   support is in progress.
 764
 765 Changes in 2.1:
 766
 767 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 768   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 769
 770 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 771   with gcc now.
 772
 773 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 774   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 775
 776 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 777   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 778   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 779
 780 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 781
 782 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 783
 784 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 785
 786 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 787
 788 Changes in 2.0:
 789
 790 * Mostly bug fixes.
 791
 792 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 793
 794 Changes in 1.94:
 795
 796 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 797   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 798   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 799   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 800   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 801   fully merged yet.)
 802
 803 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 804   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 805
 806 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 807   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 808
 809 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 810   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 811   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 812   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 813   coming.
 814
 815 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 816
 817 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 818   Youngdale.
 819
 820 Changes in 1.93.01:
 821
 822 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 823
 824 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 825
 826 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 827   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 828   can be distinguished from the register.
 829
 830 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 831   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 832
 833 \f
 834 Copyright (C) 2012-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 835
 836 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 837 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 838 notice and this notice are preserved.
 839
 840 Local variables:
 841 fill-column: 79
 842 End: