gas/NEWS

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