gas/NEWS

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