gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.25:
   4
   5 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
   6
   7 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
   8
   9 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
  10   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command line option -mccs.
  11
  12 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
  13
  14 Changes in 2.24:
  15
  16 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
  17
  18 * Add -gdwarf-sections command line option to enable per-code-section
  19   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
  20
  21 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
  22
  23 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
  24
  25 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
  26
  27 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
  28
  29 Changes in 2.23:
  30
  31 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
  32
  33 * Add support for S12X processor.
  34
  35 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
  36
  37 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
  38
  39 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
  40   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
  41
  42 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
  43
  44 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
  45
  46 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
  47
  48 Changes in 2.22:
  49
  50 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
  51
  52 Changes in 2.21:
  53
  54 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
  55
  56 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
  57
  58 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
  59   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
  60   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
  61   2.20.1.
  62
  63 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
  64
  65 * New command line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
  66   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
  67   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
  68   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
  69
  70 Changes in 2.20:
  71
  72 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
  73
  74 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
  75   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
  76   process.
  77
  78 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
  79   in binary rather than text.
  80
  81 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
  82
  83 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
  84   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
  85
  86 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
  87
  88 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
  89   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
  90   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
  91   the value.
  92
  93 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
  94
  95 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
  96
  97 Changes in 2.19:
  98
  99 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 100   tables without runtime relocation.
 101
 102 * New command line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 103   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 104
 105 * New command line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 106   targets.
 107
 108 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command line switch to
 109   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 110   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 111   command line options used, and a time stamp.
 112
 113 * New command line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 114   instructions with VEX prefix.
 115
 116 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 117
 118 * New command line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 119   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 120   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 121
 122 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 123   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 124
 125 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 126
 127 Changes in 2.18:
 128
 129 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 130
 131 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 132
 133 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 134   relocations.
 135
 136 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 137
 138 * Add support for Score target.
 139
 140 Changes in 2.17:
 141
 142 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 143
 144 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 145
 146 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 147
 148 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 149   switches can be read from <file>.
 150
 151 * The SH target supports a new command line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 152   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 153   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 154
 155 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 156   documentation for how this works.
 157
 158 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 159   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 160   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 161
 162 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 163   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 164   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 165   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 166   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 167
 168 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 169   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 170   assembler.
 171
 172 * New command line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 173
 174 Changes in 2.16:
 175
 176 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 177
 178 * New command line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 179
 180 * New command line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 181   targets.
 182
 183 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 184   mode.
 185
 186 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 187
 188 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 189
 190 * Add a -g command line option to generate debug information in the target's
 191   preferred debug format.
 192
 193 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 194
 195 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 196
 197 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 198   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 199
 200 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 201
 202 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 203   instrucitons.
 204
 205 * New command line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 206
 207 * New command line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 208   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 209
 210 Changes in 2.15:
 211
 212 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 213   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 214
 215 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 216
 217 * Added support for ARM V6.
 218
 219 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 220
 221 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 222
 223 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 224   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 225
 226 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 227   definitions created by ".req".
 228
 229 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 230
 231 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 232   information with GNU extensions.
 233
 234 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 235
 236 * Added support for v850e1.
 237
 238 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 239   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 240   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 241   switch disables the optimization.
 242
 243 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 244   existing -non_shared option.
 245
 246 Changes in 2.14:
 247
 248 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 249
 250 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 251
 252 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 253
 254 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 255   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 256
 257 * Support for SH2E added.
 258
 259 * GASP has now been removed.
 260
 261 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 262   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 263
 264 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 265
 266 Changes in 2.13:
 267
 268 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 269   and FR500 included.
 270
 271 * Support for DLX processor added.
 272
 273 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 274   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 275
 276 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 277   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 278   the currently specified base.
 279
 280 Changes in 2.12:
 281
 282 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 283
 284 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 285
 286 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 287   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 288   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 289   compatibility.
 290
 291 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 292   the ARM assembler.
 293
 294 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 295   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 296
 297 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 298   but still works for compatability.
 299
 300 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 301   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command line option
 302   -n will turn on the warning.
 303
 304 Changes in 2.11:
 305
 306 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 307
 308 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 309
 310 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 311
 312 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 313
 314 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 315
 316 * Support for IA-64.
 317
 318 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 319
 320 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 321
 322 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 323
 324 * x86 gas -q command line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 325   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 326   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 327
 328 Changes in 2.10:
 329
 330 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 331   operand when altering the flags field.
 332
 333 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 334
 335 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 336
 337 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 338
 339 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 340
 341 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 342
 343 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 344
 345 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 346
 347 * picoJava architecture support added.
 348
 349 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 350
 351 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 352   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 353
 354 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 355
 356 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 357
 358 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 359
 360 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 361   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 362   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 363   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 364
 365 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 366
 367 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 368
 369 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 370
 371 * i960 ELF support added.
 372
 373 * ARM ELF support added.
 374
 375 Changes in 2.9:
 376
 377 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 378
 379 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 380   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 381
 382 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 383
 384 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 385   listing.
 386
 387 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 388
 389 Changes in 2.8:
 390
 391 * BeOS support added.
 392
 393 * MIPS16 support added.
 394
 395 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 396
 397 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 398
 399 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 400   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 401
 402 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 403   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 404   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 405   all.
 406
 407 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 408
 409 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 410   conditionals in listings.
 411
 412 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 413   the symbol is already defined.
 414
 415 Changes in 2.7:
 416
 417 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 418   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 419   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 420   added.
 421
 422 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 423
 424 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 425
 426 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 427
 428 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 429
 430 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 431
 432 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 433   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 434   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 435   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 436
 437 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 438
 439 Changes in 2.6:
 440
 441 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 442
 443 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 444   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 445   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 446
 447 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 448
 449 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 450
 451 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 452
 453 Changes in 2.4:
 454
 455 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 456
 457 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 458
 459 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 460   debugging support.
 461
 462 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 463
 464 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 465   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 466   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 467   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 468
 469 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 470
 471 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 472   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 473
 474 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 475
 476 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 477   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 478
 479 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 480   Paul Kranenburg.
 481
 482 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 483   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 484
 485 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 486
 487 Changes in 2.3:
 488
 489 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 490
 491 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 492
 493 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 494   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 495   again too.
 496
 497 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 498   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 499   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 500   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 501   in the "dist" directory.
 502
 503 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 504   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 505   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 506
 507 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 508   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 509   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 510   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 511
 512 * Irix 5 support.
 513
 514 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 515   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 516
 517 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 518   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 519   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 520   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 521
 522 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 523   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 524   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 525   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 526
 527 Changes in 2.2:
 528
 529 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 530
 531 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 532   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 533   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 534   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 535   reliable.
 536
 537 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 538   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 539   messages about "internal errors".
 540
 541 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 542   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 543
 544 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 545   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 546   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 547   known.
 548
 549 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 550   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 551   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 552   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 553   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 554   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 555   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 556
 557 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 558   support is in progress.
 559
 560 Changes in 2.1:
 561
 562 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 563   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 564
 565 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 566   with gcc now.
 567
 568 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 569   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 570
 571 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 572   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 573   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 574
 575 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 576
 577 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 578
 579 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 580
 581 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 582
 583 Changes in 2.0:
 584
 585 * Mostly bug fixes.
 586
 587 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 588
 589 Changes in 1.94:
 590
 591 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 592   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 593   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 594   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 595   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 596   fully merged yet.)
 597
 598 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 599   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 600
 601 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 602   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 603
 604 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 605   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 606   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 607   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 608   coming.
 609
 610 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 611
 612 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 613   Youngdale.
 614
 615 Changes in 1.93.01:
 616
 617 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 618
 619 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 620
 621 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 622   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 623   can be distinguished from the register.
 624
 625 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 626   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 627
 628 \f
 629 Copyright (C) 2012-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 630
 631 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 632 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 633 notice and this notice are preserved.
 634
 635 Local variables:
 636 fill-column: 79
 637 End: