gas/NEWS

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