gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.37:
   4
   5 * arm-symbianelf support removed.
   6
   7 * Add support for Realm Management Extension (RME) for AArch64.
   8
   9 Changes in 2.36:
  10
  11 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
  12
  13 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
  14
  15 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
  16
  17 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  18
  19 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  20   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  21
  22 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE, Cortex-A78C and Cortex-X1 for
  23   AArch64 and ARM.
  24   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  25
  26 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  27   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension)and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer
  28   Extension) system registers for AArch64.
  29
  30 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  31
  32 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  33   AArch64.
  34
  35 * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
  36
  37 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  38   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  39
  40 * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for -march in
  41   AArch64.
  42
  43 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  44
  45 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  46
  47 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  48   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  49   generation, if that is active.
  50
  51 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  52   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  53
  54 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  55
  56 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  57
  58 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  59
  60 * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN flag, which can be applied to
  61   sections using the 'R' flag in the .section directive.
  62   SHF_GNU_RETAIN specifies that the section should not be garbage
  63   collected by the linker.  It requires the GNU or FreeBSD ELF OSABIs.
  64
  65 Changes in 2.35:
  66
  67 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
  68
  69 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
  70   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
  71
  72 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
  73
  74 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  75   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  76   CVE-2020-0551.
  77
  78 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  79   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  80   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  81
  82 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  83
  84 Changes in 2.34:
  85
  86 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  87   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  88   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  89   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  90
  91 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  92
  93 * Add support for z80-elf target.
  94
  95 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
  96   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
  97   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
  98
  99 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
 100
 101 Changes in 2.33:
 102
 103 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
 104   instructions.
 105
 106 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
 107   instructions.
 108
 109 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
 110   instructions.
 111
 112 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
 113   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
 114   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 115   option is not used to "no".
 116
 117 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 118   processors.
 119
 120 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 121   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 122
 123 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 124   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 125   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 126   encoding.
 127
 128 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 129   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 130
 131 Changes in 2.32:
 132
 133 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 134   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 135
 136 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 137   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 138   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 139   to "no".
 140
 141 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 142
 143 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 144
 145 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 146
 147 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 148
 149 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 150   ASE.
 151
 152 Changes in 2.31:
 153
 154 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 155   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 156   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 157
 158 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 159
 160 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 161
 162 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 163
 164 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 165   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 166   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 167   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 168   to "no".
 169
 170 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 171
 172 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 173   shorter instruction encoding.
 174
 175 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 176   x86 targets.
 177
 178 Changes in 2.30:
 179
 180 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 181
 182 Changes in 2.29:
 183
 184 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 185
 186 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 187
 188 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 189   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 190   that the registers are invalid.
 191
 192 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 193
 194 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 195   added to the ARM port.
 196
 197 Changes in 2.28:
 198
 199 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 200
 201 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 202
 203 Changes in 2.27:
 204
 205 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 206
 207 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 208   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 209
 210 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 211   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 212   port.
 213
 214 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 215   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 216   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 217
 218 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 219   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 220   default.  Default to no.
 221
 222 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 223   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 224
 225 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 226   based targets.
 227
 228 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 229   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 230   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 231
 232 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 233   whether to generate relax relocations.
 234
 235 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 236   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 237
 238 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 239
 240 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 241   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 242
 243 Changes in 2.26:
 244
 245 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 246   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 247
 248 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 249   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 250
 251 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 252   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 253   level languages.
 254
 255 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 256   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 257
 258 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 259   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 260   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 261
 262 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 263   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 264   been added to the ARM port.
 265
 266 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 267   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 268   targets.
 269
 270 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 271
 272 Changes in 2.25:
 273
 274 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 275
 276 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 277
 278 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 279   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 280
 281 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 282
 283 Changes in 2.24:
 284
 285 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 286
 287 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 288   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 289
 290 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 291
 292 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 293
 294 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 295
 296 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 297
 298 Changes in 2.23:
 299
 300 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 301
 302 * Add support for S12X processor.
 303
 304 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 305
 306 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 307
 308 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 309   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 310
 311 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 312
 313 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 314
 315 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 316
 317 Changes in 2.22:
 318
 319 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 320
 321 Changes in 2.21:
 322
 323 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 324
 325 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 326
 327 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 328   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 329   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 330   2.20.1.
 331
 332 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 333
 334 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 335   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 336   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 337   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 338
 339 Changes in 2.20:
 340
 341 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 342
 343 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 344   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 345   process.
 346
 347 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 348   in binary rather than text.
 349
 350 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 351
 352 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 353   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 354
 355 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 356
 357 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 358   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 359   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 360   the value.
 361
 362 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 363
 364 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 365
 366 Changes in 2.19:
 367
 368 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 369   tables without runtime relocation.
 370
 371 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 372   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 373
 374 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 375   targets.
 376
 377 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 378   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 379   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 380   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 381
 382 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 383   instructions with VEX prefix.
 384
 385 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 386
 387 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 388   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 389   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 390
 391 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 392   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 393
 394 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 395
 396 Changes in 2.18:
 397
 398 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 399
 400 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 401
 402 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 403   relocations.
 404
 405 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 406
 407 * Add support for Score target.
 408
 409 Changes in 2.17:
 410
 411 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 412
 413 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 414
 415 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 416
 417 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 418   switches can be read from <file>.
 419
 420 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 421   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 422   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 423
 424 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 425   documentation for how this works.
 426
 427 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 428   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 429   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 430
 431 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 432   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 433   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 434   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 435   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 436
 437 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 438   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 439   assembler.
 440
 441 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 442
 443 Changes in 2.16:
 444
 445 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 446
 447 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 448
 449 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 450   targets.
 451
 452 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 453   mode.
 454
 455 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 456
 457 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 458
 459 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 460   preferred debug format.
 461
 462 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 463
 464 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 465
 466 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 467   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 468
 469 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 470
 471 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 472   instrucitons.
 473
 474 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 475
 476 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 477   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 478
 479 Changes in 2.15:
 480
 481 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 482   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 483
 484 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 485
 486 * Added support for ARM V6.
 487
 488 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 489
 490 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 491
 492 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 493   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 494
 495 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 496   definitions created by ".req".
 497
 498 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 499
 500 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 501   information with GNU extensions.
 502
 503 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 504
 505 * Added support for v850e1.
 506
 507 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 508   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 509   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 510   switch disables the optimization.
 511
 512 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 513   existing -non_shared option.
 514
 515 Changes in 2.14:
 516
 517 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 518
 519 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 520
 521 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 522
 523 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 524   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 525
 526 * Support for SH2E added.
 527
 528 * GASP has now been removed.
 529
 530 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 531   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 532
 533 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 534
 535 Changes in 2.13:
 536
 537 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 538   and FR500 included.
 539
 540 * Support for DLX processor added.
 541
 542 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 543   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 544
 545 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 546   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 547   the currently specified base.
 548
 549 Changes in 2.12:
 550
 551 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 552
 553 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 554
 555 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 556   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 557   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 558   compatibility.
 559
 560 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 561   the ARM assembler.
 562
 563 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 564   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 565
 566 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 567   but still works for compatability.
 568
 569 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 570   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 571   -n will turn on the warning.
 572
 573 Changes in 2.11:
 574
 575 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 576
 577 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 578
 579 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 580
 581 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 582
 583 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 584
 585 * Support for IA-64.
 586
 587 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 588
 589 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 590
 591 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 592
 593 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 594   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 595   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 596
 597 Changes in 2.10:
 598
 599 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 600   operand when altering the flags field.
 601
 602 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 603
 604 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 605
 606 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 607
 608 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 609
 610 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 611
 612 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 613
 614 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 615
 616 * picoJava architecture support added.
 617
 618 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 619
 620 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 621   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 622
 623 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 624
 625 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 626
 627 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 628
 629 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 630   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 631   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 632   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 633
 634 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 635
 636 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 637
 638 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 639
 640 * i960 ELF support added.
 641
 642 * ARM ELF support added.
 643
 644 Changes in 2.9:
 645
 646 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 647
 648 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 649   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 650
 651 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 652
 653 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 654   listing.
 655
 656 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 657
 658 Changes in 2.8:
 659
 660 * BeOS support added.
 661
 662 * MIPS16 support added.
 663
 664 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 665
 666 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 667
 668 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 669   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 670
 671 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 672   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 673   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 674   all.
 675
 676 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 677
 678 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 679   conditionals in listings.
 680
 681 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 682   the symbol is already defined.
 683
 684 Changes in 2.7:
 685
 686 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 687   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 688   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 689   added.
 690
 691 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 692
 693 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 694
 695 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 696
 697 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 698
 699 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 700
 701 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 702   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 703   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 704   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 705
 706 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 707
 708 Changes in 2.6:
 709
 710 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 711
 712 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 713   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 714   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 715
 716 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 717
 718 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 719
 720 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 721
 722 Changes in 2.4:
 723
 724 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 725
 726 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 727
 728 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 729   debugging support.
 730
 731 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 732
 733 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 734   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 735   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 736   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 737
 738 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 739
 740 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 741   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 742
 743 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 744
 745 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 746   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 747
 748 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 749   Paul Kranenburg.
 750
 751 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 752   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 753
 754 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 755
 756 Changes in 2.3:
 757
 758 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 759
 760 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 761
 762 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 763   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 764   again too.
 765
 766 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 767   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 768   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 769   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 770   in the "dist" directory.
 771
 772 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 773   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 774   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 775
 776 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 777   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 778   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 779   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 780
 781 * Irix 5 support.
 782
 783 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 784   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 785
 786 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 787   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 788   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 789   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 790
 791 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 792   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 793   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 794   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 795
 796 Changes in 2.2:
 797
 798 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 799
 800 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 801   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 802   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 803   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 804   reliable.
 805
 806 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 807   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 808   messages about "internal errors".
 809
 810 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 811   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 812
 813 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 814   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 815   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 816   known.
 817
 818 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 819   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 820   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 821   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 822   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 823   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 824   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 825
 826 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 827   support is in progress.
 828
 829 Changes in 2.1:
 830
 831 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 832   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 833
 834 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 835   with gcc now.
 836
 837 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 838   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 839
 840 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 841   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 842   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 843
 844 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 845
 846 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 847
 848 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 849
 850 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 851
 852 Changes in 2.0:
 853
 854 * Mostly bug fixes.
 855
 856 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 857
 858 Changes in 1.94:
 859
 860 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 861   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 862   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 863   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 864   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 865   fully merged yet.)
 866
 867 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 868   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 869
 870 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 871   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 872
 873 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 874   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 875   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 876   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 877   coming.
 878
 879 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 880
 881 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 882   Youngdale.
 883
 884 Changes in 1.93.01:
 885
 886 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 887
 888 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 889
 890 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 891   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 892   can be distinguished from the register.
 893
 894 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 895   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 896
 897 \f
 898 Copyright (C) 2012-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 899
 900 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 901 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 902 notice and this notice are preserved.
 903
 904 Local variables:
 905 fill-column: 79
 906 End: