gas/NEWS

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