gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
   4   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
   5   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
   6   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
   7   to "no".
   8
   9 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  10
  11 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  12   shorter instruction encoding.
  13
  14 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  15   x86 targets.
  16
  17 Changes in 2.30:
  18
  19 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  20
  21 Changes in 2.29:
  22
  23 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  24
  25 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  26
  27 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  28   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  29   that the registers are invalid.
  30
  31 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  32
  33 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  34   added to the ARM port.
  35
  36 Changes in 2.28:
  37
  38 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  39
  40 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  41
  42 Changes in 2.27:
  43
  44 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  45
  46 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  47   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  48
  49 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  50   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  51   port.
  52
  53 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
  54   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
  55   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
  56
  57 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
  58   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
  59   default.  Default to no.
  60
  61 * New command line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
  62   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
  63
  64 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
  65   based targets.
  66
  67 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
  68   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
  69   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
  70
  71 * New command line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
  72   whether to generate relax relocations.
  73
  74 * New command line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
  75   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
  76
  77 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
  78
  79 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
  80   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
  81
  82 Changes in 2.26:
  83
  84 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
  85   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
  86
  87 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
  88   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
  89
  90 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
  91   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
  92   level languages.
  93
  94 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
  95   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
  96
  97 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
  98   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
  99   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 100
 101 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 102   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 103   been added to the ARM port.
 104
 105 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 106   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 107   targets.
 108
 109 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 110
 111 Changes in 2.25:
 112
 113 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 114
 115 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 116
 117 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 118   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command line option -mccs.
 119
 120 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 121
 122 Changes in 2.24:
 123
 124 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 125
 126 * Add -gdwarf-sections command line option to enable per-code-section
 127   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 128
 129 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 130
 131 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 132
 133 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 134
 135 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 136
 137 Changes in 2.23:
 138
 139 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 140
 141 * Add support for S12X processor.
 142
 143 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 144
 145 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 146
 147 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 148   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 149
 150 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 151
 152 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 153
 154 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 155
 156 Changes in 2.22:
 157
 158 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 159
 160 Changes in 2.21:
 161
 162 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 163
 164 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 165
 166 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 167   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 168   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 169   2.20.1.
 170
 171 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 172
 173 * New command line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 174   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 175   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 176   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 177
 178 Changes in 2.20:
 179
 180 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 181
 182 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 183   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 184   process.
 185
 186 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 187   in binary rather than text.
 188
 189 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 190
 191 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 192   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 193
 194 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 195
 196 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 197   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 198   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 199   the value.
 200
 201 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 202
 203 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 204
 205 Changes in 2.19:
 206
 207 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 208   tables without runtime relocation.
 209
 210 * New command line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 211   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 212
 213 * New command line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 214   targets.
 215
 216 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command line switch to
 217   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 218   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 219   command line options used, and a time stamp.
 220
 221 * New command line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 222   instructions with VEX prefix.
 223
 224 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 225
 226 * New command line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 227   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 228   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 229
 230 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 231   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 232
 233 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 234
 235 Changes in 2.18:
 236
 237 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 238
 239 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 240
 241 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 242   relocations.
 243
 244 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 245
 246 * Add support for Score target.
 247
 248 Changes in 2.17:
 249
 250 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 251
 252 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 253
 254 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 255
 256 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 257   switches can be read from <file>.
 258
 259 * The SH target supports a new command line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 260   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 261   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 262
 263 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 264   documentation for how this works.
 265
 266 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 267   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 268   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 269
 270 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 271   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 272   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 273   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 274   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 275
 276 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 277   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 278   assembler.
 279
 280 * New command line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 281
 282 Changes in 2.16:
 283
 284 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 285
 286 * New command line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 287
 288 * New command line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 289   targets.
 290
 291 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 292   mode.
 293
 294 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 295
 296 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 297
 298 * Add a -g command line option to generate debug information in the target's
 299   preferred debug format.
 300
 301 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 302
 303 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 304
 305 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 306   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 307
 308 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 309
 310 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 311   instrucitons.
 312
 313 * New command line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 314
 315 * New command line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 316   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 317
 318 Changes in 2.15:
 319
 320 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 321   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 322
 323 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 324
 325 * Added support for ARM V6.
 326
 327 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 328
 329 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 330
 331 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 332   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 333
 334 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 335   definitions created by ".req".
 336
 337 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 338
 339 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 340   information with GNU extensions.
 341
 342 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 343
 344 * Added support for v850e1.
 345
 346 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 347   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 348   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 349   switch disables the optimization.
 350
 351 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 352   existing -non_shared option.
 353
 354 Changes in 2.14:
 355
 356 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 357
 358 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 359
 360 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 361
 362 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 363   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 364
 365 * Support for SH2E added.
 366
 367 * GASP has now been removed.
 368
 369 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 370   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 371
 372 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 373
 374 Changes in 2.13:
 375
 376 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 377   and FR500 included.
 378
 379 * Support for DLX processor added.
 380
 381 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 382   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 383
 384 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 385   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 386   the currently specified base.
 387
 388 Changes in 2.12:
 389
 390 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 391
 392 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 393
 394 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 395   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 396   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 397   compatibility.
 398
 399 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 400   the ARM assembler.
 401
 402 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 403   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 404
 405 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 406   but still works for compatability.
 407
 408 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 409   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command line option
 410   -n will turn on the warning.
 411
 412 Changes in 2.11:
 413
 414 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 415
 416 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 417
 418 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 419
 420 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 421
 422 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 423
 424 * Support for IA-64.
 425
 426 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 427
 428 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 429
 430 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 431
 432 * x86 gas -q command line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 433   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 434   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 435
 436 Changes in 2.10:
 437
 438 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 439   operand when altering the flags field.
 440
 441 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 442
 443 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 444
 445 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 446
 447 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 448
 449 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 450
 451 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 452
 453 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 454
 455 * picoJava architecture support added.
 456
 457 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 458
 459 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 460   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 461
 462 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 463
 464 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 465
 466 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 467
 468 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 469   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 470   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 471   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 472
 473 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 474
 475 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 476
 477 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 478
 479 * i960 ELF support added.
 480
 481 * ARM ELF support added.
 482
 483 Changes in 2.9:
 484
 485 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 486
 487 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 488   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 489
 490 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 491
 492 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 493   listing.
 494
 495 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 496
 497 Changes in 2.8:
 498
 499 * BeOS support added.
 500
 501 * MIPS16 support added.
 502
 503 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 504
 505 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 506
 507 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 508   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 509
 510 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 511   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 512   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 513   all.
 514
 515 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 516
 517 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 518   conditionals in listings.
 519
 520 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 521   the symbol is already defined.
 522
 523 Changes in 2.7:
 524
 525 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 526   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 527   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 528   added.
 529
 530 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 531
 532 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 533
 534 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 535
 536 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 537
 538 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 539
 540 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 541   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 542   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 543   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 544
 545 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 546
 547 Changes in 2.6:
 548
 549 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 550
 551 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 552   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 553   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 554
 555 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 556
 557 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 558
 559 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 560
 561 Changes in 2.4:
 562
 563 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 564
 565 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 566
 567 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 568   debugging support.
 569
 570 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 571
 572 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 573   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 574   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 575   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 576
 577 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 578
 579 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 580   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 581
 582 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 583
 584 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 585   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 586
 587 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 588   Paul Kranenburg.
 589
 590 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 591   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 592
 593 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 594
 595 Changes in 2.3:
 596
 597 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 598
 599 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 600
 601 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 602   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 603   again too.
 604
 605 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 606   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 607   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 608   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 609   in the "dist" directory.
 610
 611 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 612   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 613   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 614
 615 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 616   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 617   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 618   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 619
 620 * Irix 5 support.
 621
 622 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 623   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 624
 625 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 626   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 627   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 628   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 629
 630 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 631   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 632   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 633   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 634
 635 Changes in 2.2:
 636
 637 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 638
 639 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 640   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 641   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 642   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 643   reliable.
 644
 645 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 646   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 647   messages about "internal errors".
 648
 649 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 650   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 651
 652 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 653   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 654   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 655   known.
 656
 657 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 658   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 659   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 660   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 661   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 662   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 663   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 664
 665 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 666   support is in progress.
 667
 668 Changes in 2.1:
 669
 670 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 671   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 672
 673 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 674   with gcc now.
 675
 676 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 677   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 678
 679 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 680   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 681   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 682
 683 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 684
 685 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 686
 687 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 688
 689 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 690
 691 Changes in 2.0:
 692
 693 * Mostly bug fixes.
 694
 695 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 696
 697 Changes in 1.94:
 698
 699 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 700   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 701   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 702   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 703   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 704   fully merged yet.)
 705
 706 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 707   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 708
 709 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 710   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 711
 712 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 713   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 714   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 715   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 716   coming.
 717
 718 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 719
 720 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 721   Youngdale.
 722
 723 Changes in 1.93.01:
 724
 725 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 726
 727 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 728
 729 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 730   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 731   can be distinguished from the register.
 732
 733 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 734   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 735
 736 \f
 737 Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 738
 739 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 740 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 741 notice and this notice are preserved.
 742
 743 Local variables:
 744 fill-column: 79
 745 End: