gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
   4
   5 * Added support for ARM V6.
   6
   7 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
   8
   9 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
  10
  11 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
  12   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
  13
  14 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
  15   definitions created by ".req".
  16
  17 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
  18
  19 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
  20   information with GNU extensions.
  21
  22 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
  23
  24 * Added support for v850e1.
  25
  26 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
  27   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
  28   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
  29   switch disables the optimization.
  30
  31 Changes in 2.14:
  32
  33 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
  34
  35 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
  36
  37 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
  38
  39 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
  40   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
  41
  42 * Support for SH2E added.
  43
  44 * GASP has now been removed.
  45
  46 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
  47   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
  48
  49 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
  50
  51 Changes in 2.13:
  52
  53 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
  54   and FR500 included.
  55
  56 * Support for DLX processor added.
  57
  58 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
  59   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
  60
  61 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
  62   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
  63   the currently specified base.
  64
  65 Changes in 2.12:
  66
  67 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
  68
  69 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
  70
  71 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
  72   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
  73   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
  74   compatibility.
  75
  76 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
  77   the ARM assembler.
  78
  79 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
  80   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
  81
  82 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
  83   but still works for compatability.
  84
  85 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
  86   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command line option
  87   -n will turn on the warning.
  88
  89 Changes in 2.11:
  90
  91 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
  92
  93 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
  94
  95 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
  96
  97 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
  98
  99 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 100
 101 * Support for IA-64.
 102
 103 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 104
 105 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 106
 107 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 108
 109 * x86 gas -q command line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 110   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 111   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 112
 113 Changes in 2.10:
 114
 115 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 116   operand when altering the flags field.
 117
 118 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 119
 120 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 121
 122 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 123
 124 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 125
 126 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 127
 128 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 129
 130 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 131
 132 * picoJava architecture support added.
 133
 134 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 135
 136 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 137   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 138
 139 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 140
 141 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 142
 143 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 144
 145 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 146   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 147   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 148   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 149
 150 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 151
 152 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 153
 154 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 155
 156 * i960 ELF support added.
 157
 158 * ARM ELF support added.
 159
 160 Changes in 2.9:
 161
 162 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 163
 164 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 165   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 166
 167 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 168
 169 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 170   listing.
 171
 172 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 173
 174 Changes in 2.8:
 175
 176 * BeOS support added.
 177
 178 * MIPS16 support added.
 179
 180 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 181
 182 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 183
 184 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 185   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 186
 187 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 188   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 189   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 190   all.
 191
 192 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 193
 194 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 195   conditionals in listings.
 196
 197 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 198   the symbol is already defined.
 199
 200 Changes in 2.7:
 201
 202 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 203   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 204   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 205   added.
 206
 207 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 208
 209 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 210
 211 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 212
 213 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 214
 215 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 216
 217 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 218   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 219   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 220   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 221
 222 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 223
 224 Changes in 2.6:
 225
 226 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 227
 228 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 229   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 230   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 231
 232 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 233
 234 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 235
 236 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 237
 238 Changes in 2.4:
 239
 240 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 241
 242 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 243
 244 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 245   debugging support.
 246
 247 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 248
 249 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 250   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 251   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 252   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 253
 254 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 255
 256 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 257   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 258
 259 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 260
 261 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 262   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 263
 264 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 265   Paul Kranenburg.
 266
 267 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 268   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 269
 270 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 271
 272 Changes in 2.3:
 273
 274 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 275
 276 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 277
 278 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 279   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 280   again too.
 281
 282 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 283   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 284   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 285   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 286   in the "dist" directory.
 287
 288 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 289   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 290   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 291
 292 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 293   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 294   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 295   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 296
 297 * Irix 5 support.
 298
 299 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 300   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 301
 302 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 303   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 304   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 305   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 306
 307 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 308   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 309   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 310   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 311
 312 Changes in 2.2:
 313
 314 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 315
 316 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 317   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 318   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 319   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 320   reliable.
 321
 322 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 323   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 324   messages about "internal errors".
 325
 326 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 327   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 328
 329 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 330   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 331   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 332   known.
 333
 334 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 335   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 336   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 337   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 338   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 339   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 340   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 341
 342 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 343   support is in progress.
 344
 345 Changes in 2.1:
 346
 347 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 348   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 349
 350 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 351   with gcc now.
 352
 353 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 354   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 355
 356 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 357   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 358   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 359
 360 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 361
 362 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 363
 364 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 365
 366 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 367
 368 Changes in 2.0:
 369
 370 * Mostly bug fixes.
 371
 372 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 373
 374 Changes in 1.94:
 375
 376 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 377   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 378   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 379   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 380   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 381   fully merged yet.)
 382
 383 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 384   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 385
 386 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 387   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 388
 389 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 390   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 391   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 392   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 393   coming.
 394
 395 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 396
 397 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 398   Youngdale.
 399
 400 Changes in 1.93.01:
 401
 402 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 403
 404 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 405
 406 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 407   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 408   can be distinguished from the register.
 409
 410 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 411   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 412
 413 \f
 414 Local variables:
 415 fill-column: 79
 416 End: