gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.36:
   4
   5 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
   6
   7 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
   8
   9 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
  10
  11 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  12
  13 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  14   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  15
  16 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE, Cortex-A78C and Cortex-X1 for
  17   AArch64 and ARM.
  18   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  19
  20 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  21   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension)and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer
  22   Extension) system registers for AArch64.
  23
  24 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  25
  26 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  27   AArch64.
  28
  29 * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
  30
  31 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  32   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  33
  34 * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for -march in
  35   AArch64.
  36
  37 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  38
  39 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  40
  41 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  42   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  43   generation, if that is active.
  44
  45 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  46   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  47
  48 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  49
  50 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  51
  52 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  53
  54 * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN flag, which can be applied to
  55   sections using the 'R' flag in the .section directive.
  56   SHF_GNU_RETAIN specifies that the section should not be garbage
  57   collected by the linker.  It requires the GNU or FreeBSD ELF OSABIs.
  58
  59 Changes in 2.35:
  60
  61 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
  62
  63 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
  64   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
  65
  66 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
  67
  68 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  69   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  70   CVE-2020-0551.
  71
  72 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  73   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  74   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  75
  76 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  77
  78 Changes in 2.34:
  79
  80 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  81   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  82   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  83   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  84
  85 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  86
  87 * Add support for z80-elf target.
  88
  89 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
  90   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
  91   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
  92
  93 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
  94
  95 Changes in 2.33:
  96
  97 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
  98   instructions.
  99
 100 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
 101   instructions.
 102
 103 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
 104   instructions.
 105
 106 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
 107   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
 108   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 109   option is not used to "no".
 110
 111 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 112   processors.
 113
 114 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 115   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 116
 117 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 118   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 119   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 120   encoding.
 121
 122 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 123   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 124
 125 Changes in 2.32:
 126
 127 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 128   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 129
 130 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 131   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 132   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 133   to "no".
 134
 135 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 136
 137 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 138
 139 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 140
 141 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 142
 143 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 144   ASE.
 145
 146 Changes in 2.31:
 147
 148 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 149   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 150   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 151
 152 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 153
 154 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 155
 156 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 157
 158 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 159   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 160   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 161   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 162   to "no".
 163
 164 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 165
 166 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 167   shorter instruction encoding.
 168
 169 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 170   x86 targets.
 171
 172 Changes in 2.30:
 173
 174 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 175
 176 Changes in 2.29:
 177
 178 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 179
 180 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 181
 182 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 183   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 184   that the registers are invalid.
 185
 186 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 187
 188 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 189   added to the ARM port.
 190
 191 Changes in 2.28:
 192
 193 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 194
 195 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 196
 197 Changes in 2.27:
 198
 199 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 200
 201 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 202   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 203
 204 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 205   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 206   port.
 207
 208 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 209   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 210   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 211
 212 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 213   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 214   default.  Default to no.
 215
 216 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 217   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 218
 219 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 220   based targets.
 221
 222 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 223   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 224   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 225
 226 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 227   whether to generate relax relocations.
 228
 229 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 230   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 231
 232 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 233
 234 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 235   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 236
 237 Changes in 2.26:
 238
 239 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 240   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 241
 242 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 243   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 244
 245 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 246   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 247   level languages.
 248
 249 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 250   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 251
 252 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 253   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 254   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 255
 256 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 257   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 258   been added to the ARM port.
 259
 260 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 261   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 262   targets.
 263
 264 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 265
 266 Changes in 2.25:
 267
 268 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 269
 270 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 271
 272 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 273   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 274
 275 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 276
 277 Changes in 2.24:
 278
 279 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 280
 281 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 282   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 283
 284 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 285
 286 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 287
 288 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 289
 290 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 291
 292 Changes in 2.23:
 293
 294 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 295
 296 * Add support for S12X processor.
 297
 298 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 299
 300 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 301
 302 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 303   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 304
 305 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 306
 307 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 308
 309 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 310
 311 Changes in 2.22:
 312
 313 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 314
 315 Changes in 2.21:
 316
 317 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 318
 319 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 320
 321 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 322   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 323   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 324   2.20.1.
 325
 326 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 327
 328 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 329   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 330   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 331   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 332
 333 Changes in 2.20:
 334
 335 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 336
 337 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 338   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 339   process.
 340
 341 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 342   in binary rather than text.
 343
 344 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 345
 346 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 347   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 348
 349 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 350
 351 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 352   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 353   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 354   the value.
 355
 356 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 357
 358 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 359
 360 Changes in 2.19:
 361
 362 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 363   tables without runtime relocation.
 364
 365 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 366   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 367
 368 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 369   targets.
 370
 371 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 372   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 373   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 374   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 375
 376 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 377   instructions with VEX prefix.
 378
 379 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 380
 381 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 382   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 383   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 384
 385 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 386   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 387
 388 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 389
 390 Changes in 2.18:
 391
 392 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 393
 394 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 395
 396 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 397   relocations.
 398
 399 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 400
 401 * Add support for Score target.
 402
 403 Changes in 2.17:
 404
 405 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 406
 407 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 408
 409 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 410
 411 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 412   switches can be read from <file>.
 413
 414 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 415   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 416   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 417
 418 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 419   documentation for how this works.
 420
 421 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 422   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 423   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 424
 425 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 426   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 427   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 428   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 429   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 430
 431 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 432   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 433   assembler.
 434
 435 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 436
 437 Changes in 2.16:
 438
 439 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 440
 441 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 442
 443 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 444   targets.
 445
 446 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 447   mode.
 448
 449 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 450
 451 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 452
 453 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 454   preferred debug format.
 455
 456 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 457
 458 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 459
 460 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 461   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 462
 463 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 464
 465 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 466   instrucitons.
 467
 468 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 469
 470 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 471   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 472
 473 Changes in 2.15:
 474
 475 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 476   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 477
 478 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 479
 480 * Added support for ARM V6.
 481
 482 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 483
 484 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 485
 486 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 487   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 488
 489 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 490   definitions created by ".req".
 491
 492 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 493
 494 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 495   information with GNU extensions.
 496
 497 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 498
 499 * Added support for v850e1.
 500
 501 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 502   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 503   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 504   switch disables the optimization.
 505
 506 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 507   existing -non_shared option.
 508
 509 Changes in 2.14:
 510
 511 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 512
 513 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 514
 515 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 516
 517 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 518   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 519
 520 * Support for SH2E added.
 521
 522 * GASP has now been removed.
 523
 524 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 525   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 526
 527 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 528
 529 Changes in 2.13:
 530
 531 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 532   and FR500 included.
 533
 534 * Support for DLX processor added.
 535
 536 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 537   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 538
 539 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 540   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 541   the currently specified base.
 542
 543 Changes in 2.12:
 544
 545 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 546
 547 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 548
 549 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 550   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 551   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 552   compatibility.
 553
 554 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 555   the ARM assembler.
 556
 557 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 558   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 559
 560 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 561   but still works for compatability.
 562
 563 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 564   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 565   -n will turn on the warning.
 566
 567 Changes in 2.11:
 568
 569 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 570
 571 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 572
 573 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 574
 575 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 576
 577 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 578
 579 * Support for IA-64.
 580
 581 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 582
 583 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 584
 585 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 586
 587 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 588   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 589   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 590
 591 Changes in 2.10:
 592
 593 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 594   operand when altering the flags field.
 595
 596 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 597
 598 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 599
 600 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 601
 602 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 603
 604 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 605
 606 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 607
 608 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 609
 610 * picoJava architecture support added.
 611
 612 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 613
 614 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 615   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 616
 617 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 618
 619 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 620
 621 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 622
 623 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 624   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 625   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 626   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 627
 628 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 629
 630 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 631
 632 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 633
 634 * i960 ELF support added.
 635
 636 * ARM ELF support added.
 637
 638 Changes in 2.9:
 639
 640 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 641
 642 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 643   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 644
 645 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 646
 647 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 648   listing.
 649
 650 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 651
 652 Changes in 2.8:
 653
 654 * BeOS support added.
 655
 656 * MIPS16 support added.
 657
 658 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 659
 660 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 661
 662 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 663   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 664
 665 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 666   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 667   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 668   all.
 669
 670 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 671
 672 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 673   conditionals in listings.
 674
 675 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 676   the symbol is already defined.
 677
 678 Changes in 2.7:
 679
 680 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 681   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 682   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 683   added.
 684
 685 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 686
 687 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 688
 689 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 690
 691 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 692
 693 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 694
 695 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 696   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 697   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 698   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 699
 700 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 701
 702 Changes in 2.6:
 703
 704 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 705
 706 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 707   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 708   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 709
 710 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 711
 712 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 713
 714 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 715
 716 Changes in 2.4:
 717
 718 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 719
 720 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 721
 722 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 723   debugging support.
 724
 725 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 726
 727 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 728   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 729   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 730   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 731
 732 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 733
 734 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 735   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 736
 737 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 738
 739 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 740   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 741
 742 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 743   Paul Kranenburg.
 744
 745 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 746   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 747
 748 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 749
 750 Changes in 2.3:
 751
 752 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 753
 754 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 755
 756 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 757   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 758   again too.
 759
 760 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 761   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 762   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 763   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 764   in the "dist" directory.
 765
 766 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 767   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 768   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 769
 770 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 771   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 772   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 773   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 774
 775 * Irix 5 support.
 776
 777 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 778   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 779
 780 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 781   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 782   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 783   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 784
 785 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 786   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 787   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 788   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 789
 790 Changes in 2.2:
 791
 792 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 793
 794 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 795   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 796   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 797   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 798   reliable.
 799
 800 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 801   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 802   messages about "internal errors".
 803
 804 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 805   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 806
 807 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 808   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 809   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 810   known.
 811
 812 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 813   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 814   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 815   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 816   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 817   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 818   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 819
 820 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 821   support is in progress.
 822
 823 Changes in 2.1:
 824
 825 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 826   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 827
 828 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 829   with gcc now.
 830
 831 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 832   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 833
 834 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 835   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 836   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 837
 838 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 839
 840 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 841
 842 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 843
 844 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 845
 846 Changes in 2.0:
 847
 848 * Mostly bug fixes.
 849
 850 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 851
 852 Changes in 1.94:
 853
 854 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 855   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 856   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 857   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 858   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 859   fully merged yet.)
 860
 861 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 862   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 863
 864 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 865   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 866
 867 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 868   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 869   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 870   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 871   coming.
 872
 873 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 874
 875 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 876   Youngdale.
 877
 878 Changes in 1.93.01:
 879
 880 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 881
 882 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 883
 884 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 885   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 886   can be distinguished from the register.
 887
 888 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 889   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 890
 891 \f
 892 Copyright (C) 2012-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 893
 894 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 895 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 896 notice and this notice are preserved.
 897
 898 Local variables:
 899 fill-column: 79
 900 End: