gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF specification
   4   has been added to the arm assembler.
   5
   6 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
   7   definitions created by ".req".
   8
   9 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
  10
  11 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
  12   information with GNU extensions.
  13
  14 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
  15
  16 * Added support for v850e1.
  17
  18 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
  19   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
  20   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
  21   switch disables the optimization.
  22
  23 Changes in 2.14:
  24
  25 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
  26
  27 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
  28
  29 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
  30
  31 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
  32   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
  33
  34 * Support for SH2E added.
  35
  36 * GASP has now been removed.
  37
  38 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
  39   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
  40
  41 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
  42
  43 Changes in 2.13:
  44
  45 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
  46   and FR500 included.
  47
  48 * Support for DLX processor added.
  49
  50 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
  51   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
  52
  53 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
  54   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
  55   the currently specified base.
  56
  57 Changes in 2.12:
  58
  59 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
  60
  61 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
  62
  63 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
  64   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
  65   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
  66   compatibility.
  67
  68 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
  69   the ARM assembler.
  70
  71 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
  72   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
  73
  74 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
  75   but still works for compatability.
  76
  77 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
  78   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command line option
  79   -n will turn on the warning.
  80
  81 Changes in 2.11:
  82
  83 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
  84
  85 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
  86
  87 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
  88
  89 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
  90
  91 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
  92
  93 * Support for IA-64.
  94
  95 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
  96
  97 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
  98
  99 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 100
 101 * x86 gas -q command line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 102   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 103   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 104
 105 Changes in 2.10:
 106
 107 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 108   operand when altering the flags field.
 109
 110 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 111
 112 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 113
 114 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 115
 116 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 117
 118 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 119
 120 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 121
 122 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 123
 124 * picoJava architecture support added.
 125
 126 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 127
 128 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 129   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 130
 131 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 132
 133 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 134
 135 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 136
 137 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 138   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 139   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 140   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 141
 142 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 143
 144 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 145
 146 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 147
 148 * i960 ELF support added.
 149
 150 * ARM ELF support added.
 151
 152 Changes in 2.9:
 153
 154 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 155
 156 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 157   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 158
 159 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 160
 161 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 162   listing.
 163
 164 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 165
 166 Changes in 2.8:
 167
 168 * BeOS support added.
 169
 170 * MIPS16 support added.
 171
 172 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 173
 174 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 175
 176 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 177   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 178
 179 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 180   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 181   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 182   all.
 183
 184 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 185
 186 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 187   conditionals in listings.
 188
 189 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 190   the symbol is already defined.
 191
 192 Changes in 2.7:
 193
 194 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 195   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 196   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 197   added.
 198
 199 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 200
 201 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 202
 203 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 204
 205 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 206
 207 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 208
 209 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 210   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 211   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 212   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 213
 214 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 215
 216 Changes in 2.6:
 217
 218 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 219
 220 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 221   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 222   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 223
 224 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 225
 226 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 227
 228 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 229
 230 Changes in 2.4:
 231
 232 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 233
 234 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 235
 236 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 237   debugging support.
 238
 239 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 240
 241 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 242   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 243   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 244   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 245
 246 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 247
 248 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 249   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 250
 251 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 252
 253 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 254   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 255
 256 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 257   Paul Kranenburg.
 258
 259 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 260   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 261
 262 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 263
 264 Changes in 2.3:
 265
 266 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 267
 268 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 269
 270 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 271   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 272   again too.
 273
 274 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 275   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 276   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 277   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 278   in the "dist" directory.
 279
 280 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 281   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 282   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 283
 284 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 285   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 286   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 287   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 288
 289 * Irix 5 support.
 290
 291 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 292   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 293
 294 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 295   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 296   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 297   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 298
 299 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 300   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 301   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 302   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 303
 304 Changes in 2.2:
 305
 306 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 307
 308 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 309   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 310   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 311   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 312   reliable.
 313
 314 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 315   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 316   messages about "internal errors".
 317
 318 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 319   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 320
 321 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 322   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 323   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 324   known.
 325
 326 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 327   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 328   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 329   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 330   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 331   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 332   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 333
 334 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 335   support is in progress.
 336
 337 Changes in 2.1:
 338
 339 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 340   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 341
 342 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 343   with gcc now.
 344
 345 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 346   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 347
 348 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 349   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 350   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 351
 352 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 353
 354 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 355
 356 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 357
 358 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 359
 360 Changes in 2.0:
 361
 362 * Mostly bug fixes.
 363
 364 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 365
 366 Changes in 1.94:
 367
 368 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 369   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 370   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 371   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 372   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 373   fully merged yet.)
 374
 375 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 376   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 377
 378 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 379   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 380
 381 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 382   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 383   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 384   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 385   coming.
 386
 387 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 388
 389 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 390   Youngdale.
 391
 392 Changes in 1.93.01:
 393
 394 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 395
 396 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 397
 398 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 399   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 400   can be distinguished from the register.
 401
 402 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 403   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 404
 405 \f
 406 Local variables:
 407 fill-column: 79
 408 End: