gas/NEWS

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