gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
   4
   5 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
   6
   7 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
   8
   9 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  10
  11 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  12   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  13
  14 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE and Cortex-X1 for AArch64 and ARM.
  15   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  16
  17 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  18   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension), CSRE (Call Stack Recorder
  19   Extension) and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer Extension) system registers for
  20   AArch64.
  21
  22 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  23
  24 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  25   AArch64.
  26
  27 * Add support for +csre feature for -march. Add CSR PDEC instruction for CSRE
  28   feature.
  29
  30 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  31   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  32
  33 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  34
  35 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  36
  37 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  38   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  39   generation, if that is active.
  40
  41 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  42   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  43
  44 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  45
  46 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  47
  48 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  49
  50 Changes in 2.35:
  51
  52 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
  53
  54 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
  55   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
  56
  57 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
  58
  59 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  60   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  61   CVE-2020-0551.
  62
  63 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  64   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  65   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  66
  67 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  68
  69 Changes in 2.34:
  70
  71 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  72   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  73   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  74   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  75
  76 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  77
  78 * Add support for z80-elf target.
  79
  80 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
  81   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
  82   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
  83
  84 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
  85
  86 Changes in 2.33:
  87
  88 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
  89   instructions.
  90
  91 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
  92   instructions.
  93
  94 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
  95   instructions.
  96
  97 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
  98   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
  99   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 100   option is not used to "no".
 101
 102 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 103   processors.
 104
 105 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 106   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 107
 108 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 109   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 110   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 111   encoding.
 112
 113 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 114   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 115
 116 Changes in 2.32:
 117
 118 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 119   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 120
 121 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 122   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 123   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 124   to "no".
 125
 126 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 127
 128 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 129
 130 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 131
 132 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 133
 134 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 135   ASE.
 136
 137 Changes in 2.31:
 138
 139 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 140   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 141   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 142
 143 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 144
 145 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 146
 147 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 148
 149 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 150   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 151   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 152   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 153   to "no".
 154
 155 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 156
 157 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 158   shorter instruction encoding.
 159
 160 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 161   x86 targets.
 162
 163 Changes in 2.30:
 164
 165 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 166
 167 Changes in 2.29:
 168
 169 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 170
 171 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 172
 173 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 174   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 175   that the registers are invalid.
 176
 177 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 178
 179 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 180   added to the ARM port.
 181
 182 Changes in 2.28:
 183
 184 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 185
 186 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 187
 188 Changes in 2.27:
 189
 190 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 191
 192 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 193   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 194
 195 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 196   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 197   port.
 198
 199 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 200   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 201   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 202
 203 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 204   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 205   default.  Default to no.
 206
 207 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 208   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 209
 210 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 211   based targets.
 212
 213 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 214   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 215   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 216
 217 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 218   whether to generate relax relocations.
 219
 220 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 221   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 222
 223 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 224
 225 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 226   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 227
 228 Changes in 2.26:
 229
 230 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 231   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 232
 233 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 234   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 235
 236 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 237   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 238   level languages.
 239
 240 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 241   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 242
 243 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 244   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 245   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 246
 247 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 248   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 249   been added to the ARM port.
 250
 251 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 252   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 253   targets.
 254
 255 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 256
 257 Changes in 2.25:
 258
 259 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 260
 261 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 262
 263 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 264   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 265
 266 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 267
 268 Changes in 2.24:
 269
 270 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 271
 272 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 273   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 274
 275 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 276
 277 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 278
 279 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 280
 281 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 282
 283 Changes in 2.23:
 284
 285 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 286
 287 * Add support for S12X processor.
 288
 289 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 290
 291 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 292
 293 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 294   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 295
 296 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 297
 298 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 299
 300 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 301
 302 Changes in 2.22:
 303
 304 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 305
 306 Changes in 2.21:
 307
 308 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 309
 310 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 311
 312 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 313   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 314   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 315   2.20.1.
 316
 317 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 318
 319 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 320   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 321   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 322   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 323
 324 Changes in 2.20:
 325
 326 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 327
 328 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 329   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 330   process.
 331
 332 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 333   in binary rather than text.
 334
 335 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 336
 337 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 338   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 339
 340 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 341
 342 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 343   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 344   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 345   the value.
 346
 347 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 348
 349 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 350
 351 Changes in 2.19:
 352
 353 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 354   tables without runtime relocation.
 355
 356 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 357   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 358
 359 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 360   targets.
 361
 362 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 363   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 364   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 365   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 366
 367 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 368   instructions with VEX prefix.
 369
 370 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 371
 372 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 373   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 374   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 375
 376 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 377   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 378
 379 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 380
 381 Changes in 2.18:
 382
 383 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 384
 385 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 386
 387 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 388   relocations.
 389
 390 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 391
 392 * Add support for Score target.
 393
 394 Changes in 2.17:
 395
 396 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 397
 398 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 399
 400 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 401
 402 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 403   switches can be read from <file>.
 404
 405 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 406   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 407   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 408
 409 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 410   documentation for how this works.
 411
 412 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 413   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 414   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 415
 416 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 417   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 418   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 419   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 420   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 421
 422 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 423   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 424   assembler.
 425
 426 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 427
 428 Changes in 2.16:
 429
 430 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 431
 432 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 433
 434 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 435   targets.
 436
 437 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 438   mode.
 439
 440 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 441
 442 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 443
 444 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 445   preferred debug format.
 446
 447 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 448
 449 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 450
 451 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 452   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 453
 454 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 455
 456 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 457   instrucitons.
 458
 459 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 460
 461 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 462   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 463
 464 Changes in 2.15:
 465
 466 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 467   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 468
 469 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 470
 471 * Added support for ARM V6.
 472
 473 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 474
 475 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 476
 477 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 478   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 479
 480 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 481   definitions created by ".req".
 482
 483 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 484
 485 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 486   information with GNU extensions.
 487
 488 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 489
 490 * Added support for v850e1.
 491
 492 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 493   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 494   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 495   switch disables the optimization.
 496
 497 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 498   existing -non_shared option.
 499
 500 Changes in 2.14:
 501
 502 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 503
 504 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 505
 506 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 507
 508 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 509   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 510
 511 * Support for SH2E added.
 512
 513 * GASP has now been removed.
 514
 515 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 516   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 517
 518 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 519
 520 Changes in 2.13:
 521
 522 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 523   and FR500 included.
 524
 525 * Support for DLX processor added.
 526
 527 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 528   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 529
 530 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 531   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 532   the currently specified base.
 533
 534 Changes in 2.12:
 535
 536 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 537
 538 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 539
 540 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 541   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 542   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 543   compatibility.
 544
 545 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 546   the ARM assembler.
 547
 548 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 549   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 550
 551 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 552   but still works for compatability.
 553
 554 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 555   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 556   -n will turn on the warning.
 557
 558 Changes in 2.11:
 559
 560 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 561
 562 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 563
 564 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 565
 566 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 567
 568 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 569
 570 * Support for IA-64.
 571
 572 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 573
 574 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 575
 576 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 577
 578 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 579   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 580   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 581
 582 Changes in 2.10:
 583
 584 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 585   operand when altering the flags field.
 586
 587 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 588
 589 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 590
 591 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 592
 593 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 594
 595 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 596
 597 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 598
 599 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 600
 601 * picoJava architecture support added.
 602
 603 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 604
 605 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 606   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 607
 608 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 609
 610 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 611
 612 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 613
 614 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 615   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 616   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 617   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 618
 619 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 620
 621 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 622
 623 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 624
 625 * i960 ELF support added.
 626
 627 * ARM ELF support added.
 628
 629 Changes in 2.9:
 630
 631 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 632
 633 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 634   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 635
 636 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 637
 638 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 639   listing.
 640
 641 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 642
 643 Changes in 2.8:
 644
 645 * BeOS support added.
 646
 647 * MIPS16 support added.
 648
 649 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 650
 651 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 652
 653 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 654   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 655
 656 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 657   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 658   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 659   all.
 660
 661 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 662
 663 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 664   conditionals in listings.
 665
 666 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 667   the symbol is already defined.
 668
 669 Changes in 2.7:
 670
 671 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 672   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 673   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 674   added.
 675
 676 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 677
 678 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 679
 680 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 681
 682 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 683
 684 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 685
 686 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 687   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 688   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 689   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 690
 691 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 692
 693 Changes in 2.6:
 694
 695 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 696
 697 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 698   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 699   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 700
 701 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 702
 703 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 704
 705 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 706
 707 Changes in 2.4:
 708
 709 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 710
 711 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 712
 713 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 714   debugging support.
 715
 716 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 717
 718 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 719   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 720   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 721   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 722
 723 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 724
 725 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 726   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 727
 728 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 729
 730 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 731   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 732
 733 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 734   Paul Kranenburg.
 735
 736 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 737   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 738
 739 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 740
 741 Changes in 2.3:
 742
 743 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 744
 745 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 746
 747 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 748   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 749   again too.
 750
 751 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 752   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 753   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 754   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 755   in the "dist" directory.
 756
 757 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 758   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 759   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 760
 761 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 762   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 763   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 764   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 765
 766 * Irix 5 support.
 767
 768 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 769   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 770
 771 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 772   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 773   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 774   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 775
 776 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 777   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 778   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 779   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 780
 781 Changes in 2.2:
 782
 783 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 784
 785 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 786   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 787   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 788   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 789   reliable.
 790
 791 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 792   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 793   messages about "internal errors".
 794
 795 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 796   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 797
 798 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 799   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 800   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 801   known.
 802
 803 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 804   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 805   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 806   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 807   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 808   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 809   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 810
 811 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 812   support is in progress.
 813
 814 Changes in 2.1:
 815
 816 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 817   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 818
 819 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 820   with gcc now.
 821
 822 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 823   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 824
 825 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 826   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 827   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 828
 829 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 830
 831 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 832
 833 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 834
 835 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 836
 837 Changes in 2.0:
 838
 839 * Mostly bug fixes.
 840
 841 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 842
 843 Changes in 1.94:
 844
 845 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 846   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 847   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 848   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 849   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 850   fully merged yet.)
 851
 852 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 853   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 854
 855 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 856   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 857
 858 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 859   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 860   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 861   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 862   coming.
 863
 864 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 865
 866 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 867   Youngdale.
 868
 869 Changes in 1.93.01:
 870
 871 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 872
 873 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 874
 875 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 876   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 877   can be distinguished from the register.
 878
 879 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 880   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 881
 882 \f
 883 Copyright (C) 2012-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 884
 885 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 886 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 887 notice and this notice are preserved.
 888
 889 Local variables:
 890 fill-column: 79
 891 End: