gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
   4   instructions.
   5
   6 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3 LLSC
   7   Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure time option
   8   to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure option is not used
   9   to "no".
  10
  11 Changes in 2.32:
  12
  13 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  14   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  15
  16 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  17   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  18   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  19   to "no".
  20
  21 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  22
  23 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  24
  25 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  26
  27 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  28
  29 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  30   ASE.
  31
  32 Changes in 2.31:
  33
  34 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  35   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  36   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  37
  38 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  39
  40 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  41
  42 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  43
  44 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  45   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  46   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  47   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  48   to "no".
  49
  50 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  51
  52 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  53   shorter instruction encoding.
  54
  55 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  56   x86 targets.
  57
  58 Changes in 2.30:
  59
  60 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  61
  62 Changes in 2.29:
  63
  64 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  65
  66 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  67
  68 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  69   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  70   that the registers are invalid.
  71
  72 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  73
  74 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  75   added to the ARM port.
  76
  77 Changes in 2.28:
  78
  79 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  80
  81 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  82
  83 Changes in 2.27:
  84
  85 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  86
  87 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  88   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  89
  90 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  91   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  92   port.
  93
  94 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
  95   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
  96   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
  97
  98 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
  99   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 100   default.  Default to no.
 101
 102 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 103   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 104
 105 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 106   based targets.
 107
 108 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 109   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 110   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 111
 112 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 113   whether to generate relax relocations.
 114
 115 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 116   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 117
 118 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 119
 120 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 121   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 122
 123 Changes in 2.26:
 124
 125 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 126   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 127
 128 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 129   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 130
 131 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 132   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 133   level languages.
 134
 135 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 136   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 137
 138 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 139   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 140   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 141
 142 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 143   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 144   been added to the ARM port.
 145
 146 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 147   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 148   targets.
 149
 150 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 151
 152 Changes in 2.25:
 153
 154 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 155
 156 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 157
 158 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 159   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 160
 161 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 162
 163 Changes in 2.24:
 164
 165 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 166
 167 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 168   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 169
 170 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 171
 172 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 173
 174 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 175
 176 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 177
 178 Changes in 2.23:
 179
 180 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 181
 182 * Add support for S12X processor.
 183
 184 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 185
 186 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 187
 188 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 189   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 190
 191 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 192
 193 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 194
 195 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 196
 197 Changes in 2.22:
 198
 199 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 200
 201 Changes in 2.21:
 202
 203 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 204
 205 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 206
 207 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 208   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 209   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 210   2.20.1.
 211
 212 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 213
 214 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 215   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 216   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 217   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 218
 219 Changes in 2.20:
 220
 221 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 222
 223 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 224   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 225   process.
 226
 227 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 228   in binary rather than text.
 229
 230 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 231
 232 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 233   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 234
 235 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 236
 237 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 238   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 239   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 240   the value.
 241
 242 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 243
 244 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 245
 246 Changes in 2.19:
 247
 248 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 249   tables without runtime relocation.
 250
 251 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 252   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 253
 254 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 255   targets.
 256
 257 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 258   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 259   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 260   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 261
 262 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 263   instructions with VEX prefix.
 264
 265 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 266
 267 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 268   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 269   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 270
 271 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 272   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 273
 274 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 275
 276 Changes in 2.18:
 277
 278 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 279
 280 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 281
 282 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 283   relocations.
 284
 285 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 286
 287 * Add support for Score target.
 288
 289 Changes in 2.17:
 290
 291 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 292
 293 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 294
 295 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 296
 297 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 298   switches can be read from <file>.
 299
 300 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 301   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 302   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 303
 304 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 305   documentation for how this works.
 306
 307 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 308   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 309   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 310
 311 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 312   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 313   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 314   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 315   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 316
 317 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 318   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 319   assembler.
 320
 321 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 322
 323 Changes in 2.16:
 324
 325 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 326
 327 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 328
 329 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 330   targets.
 331
 332 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 333   mode.
 334
 335 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 336
 337 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 338
 339 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 340   preferred debug format.
 341
 342 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 343
 344 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 345
 346 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 347   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 348
 349 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 350
 351 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 352   instrucitons.
 353
 354 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 355
 356 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 357   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 358
 359 Changes in 2.15:
 360
 361 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 362   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 363
 364 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 365
 366 * Added support for ARM V6.
 367
 368 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 369
 370 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 371
 372 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 373   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 374
 375 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 376   definitions created by ".req".
 377
 378 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 379
 380 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 381   information with GNU extensions.
 382
 383 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 384
 385 * Added support for v850e1.
 386
 387 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 388   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 389   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 390   switch disables the optimization.
 391
 392 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 393   existing -non_shared option.
 394
 395 Changes in 2.14:
 396
 397 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 398
 399 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 400
 401 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 402
 403 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 404   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 405
 406 * Support for SH2E added.
 407
 408 * GASP has now been removed.
 409
 410 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 411   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 412
 413 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 414
 415 Changes in 2.13:
 416
 417 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 418   and FR500 included.
 419
 420 * Support for DLX processor added.
 421
 422 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 423   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 424
 425 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 426   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 427   the currently specified base.
 428
 429 Changes in 2.12:
 430
 431 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 432
 433 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 434
 435 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 436   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 437   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 438   compatibility.
 439
 440 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 441   the ARM assembler.
 442
 443 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 444   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 445
 446 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 447   but still works for compatability.
 448
 449 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 450   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 451   -n will turn on the warning.
 452
 453 Changes in 2.11:
 454
 455 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 456
 457 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 458
 459 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 460
 461 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 462
 463 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 464
 465 * Support for IA-64.
 466
 467 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 468
 469 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 470
 471 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 472
 473 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 474   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 475   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 476
 477 Changes in 2.10:
 478
 479 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 480   operand when altering the flags field.
 481
 482 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 483
 484 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 485
 486 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 487
 488 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 489
 490 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 491
 492 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 493
 494 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 495
 496 * picoJava architecture support added.
 497
 498 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 499
 500 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 501   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 502
 503 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 504
 505 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 506
 507 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 508
 509 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 510   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 511   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 512   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 513
 514 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 515
 516 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 517
 518 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 519
 520 * i960 ELF support added.
 521
 522 * ARM ELF support added.
 523
 524 Changes in 2.9:
 525
 526 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 527
 528 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 529   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 530
 531 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 532
 533 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 534   listing.
 535
 536 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 537
 538 Changes in 2.8:
 539
 540 * BeOS support added.
 541
 542 * MIPS16 support added.
 543
 544 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 545
 546 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 547
 548 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 549   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 550
 551 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 552   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 553   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 554   all.
 555
 556 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 557
 558 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 559   conditionals in listings.
 560
 561 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 562   the symbol is already defined.
 563
 564 Changes in 2.7:
 565
 566 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 567   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 568   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 569   added.
 570
 571 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 572
 573 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 574
 575 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 576
 577 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 578
 579 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 580
 581 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 582   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 583   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 584   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 585
 586 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 587
 588 Changes in 2.6:
 589
 590 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 591
 592 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 593   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 594   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 595
 596 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 597
 598 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 599
 600 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 601
 602 Changes in 2.4:
 603
 604 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 605
 606 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 607
 608 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 609   debugging support.
 610
 611 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 612
 613 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 614   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 615   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 616   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 617
 618 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 619
 620 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 621   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 622
 623 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 624
 625 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 626   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 627
 628 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 629   Paul Kranenburg.
 630
 631 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 632   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 633
 634 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 635
 636 Changes in 2.3:
 637
 638 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 639
 640 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 641
 642 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 643   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 644   again too.
 645
 646 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 647   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 648   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 649   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 650   in the "dist" directory.
 651
 652 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 653   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 654   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 655
 656 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 657   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 658   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 659   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 660
 661 * Irix 5 support.
 662
 663 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 664   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 665
 666 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 667   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 668   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 669   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 670
 671 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 672   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 673   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 674   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 675
 676 Changes in 2.2:
 677
 678 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 679
 680 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 681   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 682   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 683   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 684   reliable.
 685
 686 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 687   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 688   messages about "internal errors".
 689
 690 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 691   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 692
 693 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 694   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 695   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 696   known.
 697
 698 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 699   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 700   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 701   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 702   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 703   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 704   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 705
 706 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 707   support is in progress.
 708
 709 Changes in 2.1:
 710
 711 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 712   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 713
 714 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 715   with gcc now.
 716
 717 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 718   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 719
 720 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 721   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 722   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 723
 724 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 725
 726 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 727
 728 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 729
 730 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 731
 732 Changes in 2.0:
 733
 734 * Mostly bug fixes.
 735
 736 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 737
 738 Changes in 1.94:
 739
 740 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 741   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 742   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 743   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 744   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 745   fully merged yet.)
 746
 747 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 748   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 749
 750 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 751   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 752
 753 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 754   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 755   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 756   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 757   coming.
 758
 759 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 760
 761 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 762   Youngdale.
 763
 764 Changes in 1.93.01:
 765
 766 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 767
 768 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 769
 770 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 771   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 772   can be distinguished from the register.
 773
 774 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 775   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 776
 777 \f
 778 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 779
 780 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 781 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 782 notice and this notice are preserved.
 783
 784 Local variables:
 785 fill-column: 79
 786 End: