gas/NEWS

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