gas/NEWS

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