gas/NEWS

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