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