gas/NEWS

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