gas/NEWS

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