gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.33:
   4
   5 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
   6   instructions.
   7
   8 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
   9   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
  10   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
  11   option is not used to "no".
  12
  13 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
  14   processors.
  15
  16 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
  17   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
  18
  19 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
  20   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
  21   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
  22   encoding.
  23
  24 Changes in 2.32:
  25
  26 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  27   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  28
  29 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  30   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  31   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  32   to "no".
  33
  34 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  35
  36 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  37
  38 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  39
  40 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  41
  42 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  43   ASE.
  44
  45 Changes in 2.31:
  46
  47 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  48   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  49   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  50
  51 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  52
  53 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  54
  55 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  56
  57 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  58   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  59   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  60   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  61   to "no".
  62
  63 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  64
  65 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  66   shorter instruction encoding.
  67
  68 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  69   x86 targets.
  70
  71 Changes in 2.30:
  72
  73 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  74
  75 Changes in 2.29:
  76
  77 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  78
  79 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  80
  81 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  82   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  83   that the registers are invalid.
  84
  85 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  86
  87 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  88   added to the ARM port.
  89
  90 Changes in 2.28:
  91
  92 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  93
  94 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  95
  96 Changes in 2.27:
  97
  98 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  99
 100 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 101   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 102
 103 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 104   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 105   port.
 106
 107 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 108   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 109   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 110
 111 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 112   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 113   default.  Default to no.
 114
 115 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 116   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 117
 118 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 119   based targets.
 120
 121 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 122   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 123   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 124
 125 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 126   whether to generate relax relocations.
 127
 128 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 129   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 130
 131 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 132
 133 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 134   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 135
 136 Changes in 2.26:
 137
 138 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 139   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 140
 141 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 142   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 143
 144 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 145   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 146   level languages.
 147
 148 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 149   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 150
 151 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 152   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 153   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 154
 155 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 156   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 157   been added to the ARM port.
 158
 159 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 160   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 161   targets.
 162
 163 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 164
 165 Changes in 2.25:
 166
 167 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 168
 169 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 170
 171 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 172   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 173
 174 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 175
 176 Changes in 2.24:
 177
 178 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 179
 180 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 181   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 182
 183 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 184
 185 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 186
 187 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 188
 189 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 190
 191 Changes in 2.23:
 192
 193 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 194
 195 * Add support for S12X processor.
 196
 197 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 198
 199 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 200
 201 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 202   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 203
 204 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 205
 206 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 207
 208 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 209
 210 Changes in 2.22:
 211
 212 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 213
 214 Changes in 2.21:
 215
 216 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 217
 218 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 219
 220 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 221   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 222   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 223   2.20.1.
 224
 225 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 226
 227 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 228   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 229   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 230   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 231
 232 Changes in 2.20:
 233
 234 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 235
 236 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 237   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 238   process.
 239
 240 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 241   in binary rather than text.
 242
 243 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 244
 245 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 246   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 247
 248 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 249
 250 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 251   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 252   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 253   the value.
 254
 255 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 256
 257 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 258
 259 Changes in 2.19:
 260
 261 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 262   tables without runtime relocation.
 263
 264 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 265   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 266
 267 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 268   targets.
 269
 270 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 271   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 272   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 273   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 274
 275 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 276   instructions with VEX prefix.
 277
 278 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 279
 280 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 281   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 282   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 283
 284 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 285   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 286
 287 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 288
 289 Changes in 2.18:
 290
 291 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 292
 293 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 294
 295 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 296   relocations.
 297
 298 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 299
 300 * Add support for Score target.
 301
 302 Changes in 2.17:
 303
 304 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 305
 306 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 307
 308 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 309
 310 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 311   switches can be read from <file>.
 312
 313 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 314   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 315   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 316
 317 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 318   documentation for how this works.
 319
 320 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 321   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 322   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 323
 324 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 325   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 326   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 327   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 328   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 329
 330 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 331   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 332   assembler.
 333
 334 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 335
 336 Changes in 2.16:
 337
 338 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 339
 340 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 341
 342 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 343   targets.
 344
 345 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 346   mode.
 347
 348 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 349
 350 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 351
 352 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 353   preferred debug format.
 354
 355 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 356
 357 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 358
 359 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 360   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 361
 362 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 363
 364 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 365   instrucitons.
 366
 367 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 368
 369 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 370   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 371
 372 Changes in 2.15:
 373
 374 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 375   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 376
 377 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 378
 379 * Added support for ARM V6.
 380
 381 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 382
 383 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 384
 385 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 386   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 387
 388 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 389   definitions created by ".req".
 390
 391 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 392
 393 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 394   information with GNU extensions.
 395
 396 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 397
 398 * Added support for v850e1.
 399
 400 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 401   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 402   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 403   switch disables the optimization.
 404
 405 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 406   existing -non_shared option.
 407
 408 Changes in 2.14:
 409
 410 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 411
 412 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 413
 414 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 415
 416 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 417   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 418
 419 * Support for SH2E added.
 420
 421 * GASP has now been removed.
 422
 423 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 424   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 425
 426 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 427
 428 Changes in 2.13:
 429
 430 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 431   and FR500 included.
 432
 433 * Support for DLX processor added.
 434
 435 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 436   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 437
 438 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 439   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 440   the currently specified base.
 441
 442 Changes in 2.12:
 443
 444 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 445
 446 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 447
 448 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 449   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 450   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 451   compatibility.
 452
 453 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 454   the ARM assembler.
 455
 456 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 457   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 458
 459 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 460   but still works for compatability.
 461
 462 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 463   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 464   -n will turn on the warning.
 465
 466 Changes in 2.11:
 467
 468 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 469
 470 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 471
 472 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 473
 474 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 475
 476 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 477
 478 * Support for IA-64.
 479
 480 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 481
 482 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 483
 484 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 485
 486 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 487   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 488   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 489
 490 Changes in 2.10:
 491
 492 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 493   operand when altering the flags field.
 494
 495 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 496
 497 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 498
 499 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 500
 501 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 502
 503 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 504
 505 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 506
 507 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 508
 509 * picoJava architecture support added.
 510
 511 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 512
 513 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 514   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 515
 516 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 517
 518 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 519
 520 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 521
 522 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 523   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 524   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 525   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 526
 527 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 528
 529 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 530
 531 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 532
 533 * i960 ELF support added.
 534
 535 * ARM ELF support added.
 536
 537 Changes in 2.9:
 538
 539 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 540
 541 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 542   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 543
 544 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 545
 546 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 547   listing.
 548
 549 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 550
 551 Changes in 2.8:
 552
 553 * BeOS support added.
 554
 555 * MIPS16 support added.
 556
 557 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 558
 559 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 560
 561 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 562   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 563
 564 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 565   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 566   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 567   all.
 568
 569 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 570
 571 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 572   conditionals in listings.
 573
 574 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 575   the symbol is already defined.
 576
 577 Changes in 2.7:
 578
 579 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 580   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 581   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 582   added.
 583
 584 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 585
 586 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 587
 588 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 589
 590 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 591
 592 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 593
 594 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 595   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 596   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 597   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 598
 599 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 600
 601 Changes in 2.6:
 602
 603 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 604
 605 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 606   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 607   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 608
 609 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 610
 611 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 612
 613 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 614
 615 Changes in 2.4:
 616
 617 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 618
 619 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 620
 621 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 622   debugging support.
 623
 624 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 625
 626 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 627   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 628   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 629   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 630
 631 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 632
 633 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 634   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 635
 636 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 637
 638 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 639   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 640
 641 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 642   Paul Kranenburg.
 643
 644 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 645   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 646
 647 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 648
 649 Changes in 2.3:
 650
 651 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 652
 653 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 654
 655 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 656   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 657   again too.
 658
 659 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 660   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 661   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 662   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 663   in the "dist" directory.
 664
 665 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 666   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 667   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 668
 669 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 670   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 671   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 672   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 673
 674 * Irix 5 support.
 675
 676 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 677   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 678
 679 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 680   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 681   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 682   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 683
 684 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 685   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 686   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 687   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 688
 689 Changes in 2.2:
 690
 691 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 692
 693 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 694   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 695   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 696   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 697   reliable.
 698
 699 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 700   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 701   messages about "internal errors".
 702
 703 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 704   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 705
 706 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 707   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 708   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 709   known.
 710
 711 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 712   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 713   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 714   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 715   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 716   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 717   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 718
 719 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 720   support is in progress.
 721
 722 Changes in 2.1:
 723
 724 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 725   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 726
 727 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 728   with gcc now.
 729
 730 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 731   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 732
 733 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 734   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 735   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 736
 737 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 738
 739 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 740
 741 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 742
 743 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 744
 745 Changes in 2.0:
 746
 747 * Mostly bug fixes.
 748
 749 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 750
 751 Changes in 1.94:
 752
 753 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 754   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 755   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 756   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 757   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 758   fully merged yet.)
 759
 760 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 761   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 762
 763 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 764   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 765
 766 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 767   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 768   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 769   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 770   coming.
 771
 772 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 773
 774 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 775   Youngdale.
 776
 777 Changes in 1.93.01:
 778
 779 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 780
 781 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 782
 783 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 784   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 785   can be distinguished from the register.
 786
 787 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 788   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 789
 790 \f
 791 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 792
 793 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 794 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 795 notice and this notice are preserved.
 796
 797 Local variables:
 798 fill-column: 79
 799 End: