gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
   4
   5 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
   6
   7 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
   8   ASE.
   9
  10 Changes in 2.31:
  11
  12 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  13   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  14   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  15
  16 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  17
  18 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  19
  20 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  21
  22 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  23   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  24   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  25   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  26   to "no".
  27
  28 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  29
  30 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  31   shorter instruction encoding.
  32
  33 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  34   x86 targets.
  35
  36 Changes in 2.30:
  37
  38 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  39
  40 Changes in 2.29:
  41
  42 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  43
  44 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  45
  46 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  47   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  48   that the registers are invalid.
  49
  50 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  51
  52 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  53   added to the ARM port.
  54
  55 Changes in 2.28:
  56
  57 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  58
  59 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  60
  61 Changes in 2.27:
  62
  63 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  64
  65 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  66   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  67
  68 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  69   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  70   port.
  71
  72 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
  73   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
  74   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
  75
  76 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
  77   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
  78   default.  Default to no.
  79
  80 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
  81   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
  82
  83 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
  84   based targets.
  85
  86 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
  87   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
  88   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
  89
  90 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
  91   whether to generate relax relocations.
  92
  93 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
  94   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
  95
  96 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
  97
  98 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
  99   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 100
 101 Changes in 2.26:
 102
 103 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 104   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 105
 106 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 107   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 108
 109 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 110   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 111   level languages.
 112
 113 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 114   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 115
 116 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 117   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 118   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 119
 120 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 121   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 122   been added to the ARM port.
 123
 124 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 125   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 126   targets.
 127
 128 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 129
 130 Changes in 2.25:
 131
 132 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 133
 134 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 135
 136 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 137   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 138
 139 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 140
 141 Changes in 2.24:
 142
 143 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 144
 145 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 146   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 147
 148 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 149
 150 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 151
 152 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 153
 154 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 155
 156 Changes in 2.23:
 157
 158 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 159
 160 * Add support for S12X processor.
 161
 162 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 163
 164 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 165
 166 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 167   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 168
 169 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 170
 171 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 172
 173 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 174
 175 Changes in 2.22:
 176
 177 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 178
 179 Changes in 2.21:
 180
 181 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 182
 183 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 184
 185 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 186   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 187   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 188   2.20.1.
 189
 190 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 191
 192 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 193   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 194   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 195   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 196
 197 Changes in 2.20:
 198
 199 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 200
 201 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 202   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 203   process.
 204
 205 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 206   in binary rather than text.
 207
 208 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 209
 210 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 211   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 212
 213 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 214
 215 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 216   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 217   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 218   the value.
 219
 220 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 221
 222 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 223
 224 Changes in 2.19:
 225
 226 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 227   tables without runtime relocation.
 228
 229 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 230   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 231
 232 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 233   targets.
 234
 235 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 236   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 237   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 238   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 239
 240 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 241   instructions with VEX prefix.
 242
 243 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 244
 245 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 246   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 247   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 248
 249 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 250   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 251
 252 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 253
 254 Changes in 2.18:
 255
 256 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 257
 258 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 259
 260 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 261   relocations.
 262
 263 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 264
 265 * Add support for Score target.
 266
 267 Changes in 2.17:
 268
 269 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 270
 271 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 272
 273 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 274
 275 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 276   switches can be read from <file>.
 277
 278 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 279   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 280   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 281
 282 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 283   documentation for how this works.
 284
 285 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 286   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 287   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 288
 289 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 290   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 291   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 292   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 293   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 294
 295 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 296   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 297   assembler.
 298
 299 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 300
 301 Changes in 2.16:
 302
 303 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 304
 305 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 306
 307 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 308   targets.
 309
 310 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 311   mode.
 312
 313 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 314
 315 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 316
 317 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 318   preferred debug format.
 319
 320 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 321
 322 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 323
 324 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 325   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 326
 327 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 328
 329 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 330   instrucitons.
 331
 332 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 333
 334 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 335   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 336
 337 Changes in 2.15:
 338
 339 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 340   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 341
 342 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 343
 344 * Added support for ARM V6.
 345
 346 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 347
 348 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 349
 350 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 351   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 352
 353 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 354   definitions created by ".req".
 355
 356 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 357
 358 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 359   information with GNU extensions.
 360
 361 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 362
 363 * Added support for v850e1.
 364
 365 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 366   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 367   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 368   switch disables the optimization.
 369
 370 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 371   existing -non_shared option.
 372
 373 Changes in 2.14:
 374
 375 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 376
 377 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 378
 379 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 380
 381 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 382   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 383
 384 * Support for SH2E added.
 385
 386 * GASP has now been removed.
 387
 388 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 389   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 390
 391 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 392
 393 Changes in 2.13:
 394
 395 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 396   and FR500 included.
 397
 398 * Support for DLX processor added.
 399
 400 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 401   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 402
 403 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 404   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 405   the currently specified base.
 406
 407 Changes in 2.12:
 408
 409 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 410
 411 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 412
 413 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 414   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 415   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 416   compatibility.
 417
 418 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 419   the ARM assembler.
 420
 421 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 422   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 423
 424 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 425   but still works for compatability.
 426
 427 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 428   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 429   -n will turn on the warning.
 430
 431 Changes in 2.11:
 432
 433 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 434
 435 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 436
 437 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 438
 439 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 440
 441 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 442
 443 * Support for IA-64.
 444
 445 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 446
 447 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 448
 449 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 450
 451 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 452   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 453   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 454
 455 Changes in 2.10:
 456
 457 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 458   operand when altering the flags field.
 459
 460 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 461
 462 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 463
 464 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 465
 466 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 467
 468 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 469
 470 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 471
 472 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 473
 474 * picoJava architecture support added.
 475
 476 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 477
 478 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 479   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 480
 481 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 482
 483 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 484
 485 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 486
 487 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 488   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 489   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 490   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 491
 492 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 493
 494 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 495
 496 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 497
 498 * i960 ELF support added.
 499
 500 * ARM ELF support added.
 501
 502 Changes in 2.9:
 503
 504 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 505
 506 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 507   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 508
 509 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 510
 511 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 512   listing.
 513
 514 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 515
 516 Changes in 2.8:
 517
 518 * BeOS support added.
 519
 520 * MIPS16 support added.
 521
 522 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 523
 524 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 525
 526 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 527   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 528
 529 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 530   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 531   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 532   all.
 533
 534 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 535
 536 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 537   conditionals in listings.
 538
 539 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 540   the symbol is already defined.
 541
 542 Changes in 2.7:
 543
 544 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 545   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 546   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 547   added.
 548
 549 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 550
 551 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 552
 553 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 554
 555 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 556
 557 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 558
 559 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 560   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 561   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 562   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 563
 564 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 565
 566 Changes in 2.6:
 567
 568 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 569
 570 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 571   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 572   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 573
 574 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 575
 576 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 577
 578 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 579
 580 Changes in 2.4:
 581
 582 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 583
 584 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 585
 586 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 587   debugging support.
 588
 589 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 590
 591 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 592   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 593   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 594   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 595
 596 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 597
 598 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 599   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 600
 601 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 602
 603 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 604   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 605
 606 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 607   Paul Kranenburg.
 608
 609 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 610   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 611
 612 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 613
 614 Changes in 2.3:
 615
 616 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 617
 618 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 619
 620 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 621   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 622   again too.
 623
 624 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 625   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 626   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 627   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 628   in the "dist" directory.
 629
 630 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 631   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 632   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 633
 634 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 635   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 636   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 637   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 638
 639 * Irix 5 support.
 640
 641 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 642   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 643
 644 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 645   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 646   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 647   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 648
 649 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 650   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 651   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 652   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 653
 654 Changes in 2.2:
 655
 656 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 657
 658 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 659   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 660   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 661   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 662   reliable.
 663
 664 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 665   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 666   messages about "internal errors".
 667
 668 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 669   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 670
 671 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 672   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 673   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 674   known.
 675
 676 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 677   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 678   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 679   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 680   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 681   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 682   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 683
 684 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 685   support is in progress.
 686
 687 Changes in 2.1:
 688
 689 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 690   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 691
 692 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 693   with gcc now.
 694
 695 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 696   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 697
 698 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 699   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 700   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 701
 702 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 703
 704 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 705
 706 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 707
 708 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 709
 710 Changes in 2.0:
 711
 712 * Mostly bug fixes.
 713
 714 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 715
 716 Changes in 1.94:
 717
 718 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 719   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 720   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 721   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 722   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 723   fully merged yet.)
 724
 725 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 726   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 727
 728 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 729   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 730
 731 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 732   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 733   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 734   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 735   coming.
 736
 737 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 738
 739 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 740   Youngdale.
 741
 742 Changes in 1.93.01:
 743
 744 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 745
 746 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 747
 748 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 749   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 750   can be distinguished from the register.
 751
 752 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 753   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 754
 755 \f
 756 Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 757
 758 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 759 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 760 notice and this notice are preserved.
 761
 762 Local variables:
 763 fill-column: 79
 764 End: