gas/NEWS

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