gas/NEWS

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