gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
   4
   5 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
   6
   7 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
   8
   9 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  10
  11 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  12   ASE.
  13
  14 Changes in 2.31:
  15
  16 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  17   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  18   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  19
  20 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  21
  22 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  23
  24 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  25
  26 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  27   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  28   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  29   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  30   to "no".
  31
  32 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  33
  34 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  35   shorter instruction encoding.
  36
  37 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  38   x86 targets.
  39
  40 Changes in 2.30:
  41
  42 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  43
  44 Changes in 2.29:
  45
  46 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  47
  48 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  49
  50 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  51   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  52   that the registers are invalid.
  53
  54 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  55
  56 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  57   added to the ARM port.
  58
  59 Changes in 2.28:
  60
  61 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  62
  63 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  64
  65 Changes in 2.27:
  66
  67 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  68
  69 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  70   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  71
  72 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  73   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  74   port.
  75
  76 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
  77   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
  78   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
  79
  80 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
  81   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
  82   default.  Default to no.
  83
  84 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
  85   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
  86
  87 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
  88   based targets.
  89
  90 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
  91   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
  92   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
  93
  94 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
  95   whether to generate relax relocations.
  96
  97 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
  98   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
  99
 100 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 101
 102 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 103   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 104
 105 Changes in 2.26:
 106
 107 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 108   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 109
 110 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 111   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 112
 113 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 114   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 115   level languages.
 116
 117 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 118   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 119
 120 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 121   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 122   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 123
 124 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 125   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 126   been added to the ARM port.
 127
 128 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 129   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 130   targets.
 131
 132 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 133
 134 Changes in 2.25:
 135
 136 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 137
 138 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 139
 140 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 141   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 142
 143 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 144
 145 Changes in 2.24:
 146
 147 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 148
 149 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 150   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 151
 152 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 153
 154 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 155
 156 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 157
 158 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 159
 160 Changes in 2.23:
 161
 162 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 163
 164 * Add support for S12X processor.
 165
 166 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 167
 168 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 169
 170 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 171   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 172
 173 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 174
 175 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 176
 177 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 178
 179 Changes in 2.22:
 180
 181 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 182
 183 Changes in 2.21:
 184
 185 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 186
 187 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 188
 189 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 190   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 191   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 192   2.20.1.
 193
 194 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 195
 196 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 197   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 198   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 199   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 200
 201 Changes in 2.20:
 202
 203 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 204
 205 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 206   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 207   process.
 208
 209 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 210   in binary rather than text.
 211
 212 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 213
 214 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 215   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 216
 217 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 218
 219 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 220   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 221   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 222   the value.
 223
 224 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 225
 226 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 227
 228 Changes in 2.19:
 229
 230 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 231   tables without runtime relocation.
 232
 233 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 234   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 235
 236 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 237   targets.
 238
 239 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 240   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 241   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 242   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 243
 244 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 245   instructions with VEX prefix.
 246
 247 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 248
 249 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 250   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 251   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 252
 253 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 254   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 255
 256 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 257
 258 Changes in 2.18:
 259
 260 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 261
 262 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 263
 264 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 265   relocations.
 266
 267 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 268
 269 * Add support for Score target.
 270
 271 Changes in 2.17:
 272
 273 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 274
 275 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 276
 277 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 278
 279 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 280   switches can be read from <file>.
 281
 282 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 283   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 284   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 285
 286 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 287   documentation for how this works.
 288
 289 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 290   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 291   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 292
 293 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 294   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 295   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 296   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 297   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 298
 299 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 300   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 301   assembler.
 302
 303 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 304
 305 Changes in 2.16:
 306
 307 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 308
 309 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 310
 311 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 312   targets.
 313
 314 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 315   mode.
 316
 317 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 318
 319 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 320
 321 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 322   preferred debug format.
 323
 324 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 325
 326 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 327
 328 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 329   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 330
 331 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 332
 333 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 334   instrucitons.
 335
 336 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 337
 338 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 339   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 340
 341 Changes in 2.15:
 342
 343 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 344   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 345
 346 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 347
 348 * Added support for ARM V6.
 349
 350 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 351
 352 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 353
 354 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 355   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 356
 357 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 358   definitions created by ".req".
 359
 360 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 361
 362 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 363   information with GNU extensions.
 364
 365 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 366
 367 * Added support for v850e1.
 368
 369 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 370   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 371   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 372   switch disables the optimization.
 373
 374 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 375   existing -non_shared option.
 376
 377 Changes in 2.14:
 378
 379 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 380
 381 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 382
 383 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 384
 385 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 386   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 387
 388 * Support for SH2E added.
 389
 390 * GASP has now been removed.
 391
 392 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 393   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 394
 395 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 396
 397 Changes in 2.13:
 398
 399 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 400   and FR500 included.
 401
 402 * Support for DLX processor added.
 403
 404 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 405   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 406
 407 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 408   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 409   the currently specified base.
 410
 411 Changes in 2.12:
 412
 413 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 414
 415 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 416
 417 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 418   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 419   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 420   compatibility.
 421
 422 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 423   the ARM assembler.
 424
 425 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 426   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 427
 428 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 429   but still works for compatability.
 430
 431 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 432   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 433   -n will turn on the warning.
 434
 435 Changes in 2.11:
 436
 437 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 438
 439 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 440
 441 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 442
 443 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 444
 445 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 446
 447 * Support for IA-64.
 448
 449 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 450
 451 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 452
 453 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 454
 455 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 456   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 457   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 458
 459 Changes in 2.10:
 460
 461 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 462   operand when altering the flags field.
 463
 464 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 465
 466 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 467
 468 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 469
 470 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 471
 472 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 473
 474 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 475
 476 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 477
 478 * picoJava architecture support added.
 479
 480 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 481
 482 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 483   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 484
 485 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 486
 487 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 488
 489 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 490
 491 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 492   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 493   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 494   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 495
 496 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 497
 498 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 499
 500 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 501
 502 * i960 ELF support added.
 503
 504 * ARM ELF support added.
 505
 506 Changes in 2.9:
 507
 508 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 509
 510 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 511   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 512
 513 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 514
 515 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 516   listing.
 517
 518 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 519
 520 Changes in 2.8:
 521
 522 * BeOS support added.
 523
 524 * MIPS16 support added.
 525
 526 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 527
 528 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 529
 530 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 531   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 532
 533 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 534   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 535   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 536   all.
 537
 538 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 539
 540 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 541   conditionals in listings.
 542
 543 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 544   the symbol is already defined.
 545
 546 Changes in 2.7:
 547
 548 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 549   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 550   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 551   added.
 552
 553 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 554
 555 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 556
 557 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 558
 559 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 560
 561 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 562
 563 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 564   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 565   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 566   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 567
 568 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 569
 570 Changes in 2.6:
 571
 572 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 573
 574 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 575   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 576   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 577
 578 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 579
 580 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 581
 582 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 583
 584 Changes in 2.4:
 585
 586 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 587
 588 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 589
 590 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 591   debugging support.
 592
 593 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 594
 595 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 596   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 597   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 598   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 599
 600 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 601
 602 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 603   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 604
 605 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 606
 607 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 608   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 609
 610 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 611   Paul Kranenburg.
 612
 613 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 614   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 615
 616 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 617
 618 Changes in 2.3:
 619
 620 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 621
 622 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 623
 624 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 625   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 626   again too.
 627
 628 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 629   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 630   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 631   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 632   in the "dist" directory.
 633
 634 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 635   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 636   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 637
 638 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 639   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 640   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 641   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 642
 643 * Irix 5 support.
 644
 645 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 646   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 647
 648 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 649   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 650   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 651   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 652
 653 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 654   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 655   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 656   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 657
 658 Changes in 2.2:
 659
 660 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 661
 662 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 663   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 664   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 665   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 666   reliable.
 667
 668 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 669   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 670   messages about "internal errors".
 671
 672 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 673   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 674
 675 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 676   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 677   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 678   known.
 679
 680 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 681   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 682   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 683   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 684   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 685   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 686   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 687
 688 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 689   support is in progress.
 690
 691 Changes in 2.1:
 692
 693 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 694   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 695
 696 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 697   with gcc now.
 698
 699 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 700   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 701
 702 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 703   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 704   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 705
 706 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 707
 708 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 709
 710 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 711
 712 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 713
 714 Changes in 2.0:
 715
 716 * Mostly bug fixes.
 717
 718 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 719
 720 Changes in 1.94:
 721
 722 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 723   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 724   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 725   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 726   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 727   fully merged yet.)
 728
 729 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 730   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 731
 732 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 733   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 734
 735 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 736   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 737   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 738   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 739   coming.
 740
 741 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 742
 743 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 744   Youngdale.
 745
 746 Changes in 1.93.01:
 747
 748 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 749
 750 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 751
 752 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 753   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 754   can be distinguished from the register.
 755
 756 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 757   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 758
 759 \f
 760 Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 761
 762 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 763 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 764 notice and this notice are preserved.
 765
 766 Local variables:
 767 fill-column: 79
 768 End: