gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
   4
   5 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
   6
   7 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
   8
   9 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  10
  11 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  12   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  13
  14 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE, Cortex-A78C and Cortex-X1 for
  15   AArch64 and ARM.
  16   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  17
  18 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  19   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension), CSRE (Call Stack Recorder
  20   Extension) and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer Extension) system registers for
  21   AArch64.
  22
  23 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  24
  25 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  26   AArch64.
  27
  28 * Add support for +csre feature for -march. Add CSR PDEC instruction for CSRE
  29   feature in AArch64.
  30
  31 * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
  32
  33 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  34   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  35
  36 * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for -march in
  37   AArch64.
  38
  39 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  40
  41 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  42
  43 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  44   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  45   generation, if that is active.
  46
  47 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  48   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  49
  50 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  51
  52 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  53
  54 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  55
  56 * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN flag, which can be applied to
  57   sections using the 'R' flag in the .section directive.
  58   SHF_GNU_RETAIN specifies that the section should not be garbage
  59   collected by the linker.  It requires the GNU or FreeBSD ELF OSABIs.
  60
  61 Changes in 2.35:
  62
  63 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
  64
  65 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
  66   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
  67
  68 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
  69
  70 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  71   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  72   CVE-2020-0551.
  73
  74 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  75   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  76   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  77
  78 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  79
  80 Changes in 2.34:
  81
  82 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  83   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  84   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  85   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  86
  87 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  88
  89 * Add support for z80-elf target.
  90
  91 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
  92   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
  93   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
  94
  95 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
  96
  97 Changes in 2.33:
  98
  99 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
 100   instructions.
 101
 102 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
 103   instructions.
 104
 105 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
 106   instructions.
 107
 108 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
 109   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
 110   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 111   option is not used to "no".
 112
 113 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 114   processors.
 115
 116 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 117   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 118
 119 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 120   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 121   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 122   encoding.
 123
 124 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 125   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 126
 127 Changes in 2.32:
 128
 129 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 130   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 131
 132 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 133   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 134   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 135   to "no".
 136
 137 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 138
 139 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 140
 141 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 142
 143 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 144
 145 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 146   ASE.
 147
 148 Changes in 2.31:
 149
 150 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 151   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 152   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 153
 154 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 155
 156 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 157
 158 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 159
 160 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 161   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 162   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 163   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 164   to "no".
 165
 166 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 167
 168 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 169   shorter instruction encoding.
 170
 171 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 172   x86 targets.
 173
 174 Changes in 2.30:
 175
 176 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 177
 178 Changes in 2.29:
 179
 180 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 181
 182 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 183
 184 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 185   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 186   that the registers are invalid.
 187
 188 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 189
 190 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 191   added to the ARM port.
 192
 193 Changes in 2.28:
 194
 195 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 196
 197 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 198
 199 Changes in 2.27:
 200
 201 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 202
 203 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 204   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 205
 206 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 207   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 208   port.
 209
 210 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 211   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 212   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 213
 214 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 215   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 216   default.  Default to no.
 217
 218 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 219   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 220
 221 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 222   based targets.
 223
 224 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 225   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 226   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 227
 228 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 229   whether to generate relax relocations.
 230
 231 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 232   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 233
 234 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 235
 236 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 237   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 238
 239 Changes in 2.26:
 240
 241 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 242   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 243
 244 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 245   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 246
 247 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 248   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 249   level languages.
 250
 251 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 252   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 253
 254 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 255   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 256   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 257
 258 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 259   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 260   been added to the ARM port.
 261
 262 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 263   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 264   targets.
 265
 266 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 267
 268 Changes in 2.25:
 269
 270 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 271
 272 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 273
 274 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 275   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 276
 277 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 278
 279 Changes in 2.24:
 280
 281 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 282
 283 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 284   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 285
 286 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 287
 288 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 289
 290 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 291
 292 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 293
 294 Changes in 2.23:
 295
 296 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 297
 298 * Add support for S12X processor.
 299
 300 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 301
 302 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 303
 304 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 305   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 306
 307 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 308
 309 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 310
 311 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 312
 313 Changes in 2.22:
 314
 315 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 316
 317 Changes in 2.21:
 318
 319 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 320
 321 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 322
 323 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 324   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 325   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 326   2.20.1.
 327
 328 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 329
 330 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 331   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 332   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 333   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 334
 335 Changes in 2.20:
 336
 337 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 338
 339 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 340   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 341   process.
 342
 343 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 344   in binary rather than text.
 345
 346 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 347
 348 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 349   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 350
 351 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 352
 353 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 354   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 355   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 356   the value.
 357
 358 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 359
 360 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 361
 362 Changes in 2.19:
 363
 364 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 365   tables without runtime relocation.
 366
 367 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 368   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 369
 370 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 371   targets.
 372
 373 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 374   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 375   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 376   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 377
 378 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 379   instructions with VEX prefix.
 380
 381 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 382
 383 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 384   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 385   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 386
 387 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 388   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 389
 390 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 391
 392 Changes in 2.18:
 393
 394 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 395
 396 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 397
 398 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 399   relocations.
 400
 401 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 402
 403 * Add support for Score target.
 404
 405 Changes in 2.17:
 406
 407 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 408
 409 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 410
 411 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 412
 413 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 414   switches can be read from <file>.
 415
 416 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 417   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 418   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 419
 420 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 421   documentation for how this works.
 422
 423 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 424   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 425   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 426
 427 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 428   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 429   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 430   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 431   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 432
 433 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 434   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 435   assembler.
 436
 437 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 438
 439 Changes in 2.16:
 440
 441 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 442
 443 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 444
 445 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 446   targets.
 447
 448 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 449   mode.
 450
 451 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 452
 453 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 454
 455 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 456   preferred debug format.
 457
 458 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 459
 460 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 461
 462 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 463   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 464
 465 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 466
 467 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 468   instrucitons.
 469
 470 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 471
 472 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 473   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 474
 475 Changes in 2.15:
 476
 477 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 478   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 479
 480 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 481
 482 * Added support for ARM V6.
 483
 484 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 485
 486 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 487
 488 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 489   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 490
 491 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 492   definitions created by ".req".
 493
 494 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 495
 496 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 497   information with GNU extensions.
 498
 499 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 500
 501 * Added support for v850e1.
 502
 503 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 504   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 505   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 506   switch disables the optimization.
 507
 508 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 509   existing -non_shared option.
 510
 511 Changes in 2.14:
 512
 513 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 514
 515 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 516
 517 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 518
 519 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 520   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 521
 522 * Support for SH2E added.
 523
 524 * GASP has now been removed.
 525
 526 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 527   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 528
 529 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 530
 531 Changes in 2.13:
 532
 533 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 534   and FR500 included.
 535
 536 * Support for DLX processor added.
 537
 538 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 539   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 540
 541 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 542   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 543   the currently specified base.
 544
 545 Changes in 2.12:
 546
 547 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 548
 549 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 550
 551 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 552   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 553   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 554   compatibility.
 555
 556 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 557   the ARM assembler.
 558
 559 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 560   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 561
 562 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 563   but still works for compatability.
 564
 565 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 566   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 567   -n will turn on the warning.
 568
 569 Changes in 2.11:
 570
 571 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 572
 573 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 574
 575 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 576
 577 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 578
 579 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 580
 581 * Support for IA-64.
 582
 583 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 584
 585 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 586
 587 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 588
 589 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 590   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 591   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 592
 593 Changes in 2.10:
 594
 595 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 596   operand when altering the flags field.
 597
 598 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 599
 600 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 601
 602 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 603
 604 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 605
 606 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 607
 608 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 609
 610 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 611
 612 * picoJava architecture support added.
 613
 614 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 615
 616 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 617   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 618
 619 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 620
 621 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 622
 623 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 624
 625 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 626   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 627   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 628   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 629
 630 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 631
 632 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 633
 634 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 635
 636 * i960 ELF support added.
 637
 638 * ARM ELF support added.
 639
 640 Changes in 2.9:
 641
 642 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 643
 644 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 645   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 646
 647 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 648
 649 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 650   listing.
 651
 652 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 653
 654 Changes in 2.8:
 655
 656 * BeOS support added.
 657
 658 * MIPS16 support added.
 659
 660 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 661
 662 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 663
 664 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 665   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 666
 667 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 668   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 669   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 670   all.
 671
 672 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 673
 674 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 675   conditionals in listings.
 676
 677 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 678   the symbol is already defined.
 679
 680 Changes in 2.7:
 681
 682 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 683   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 684   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 685   added.
 686
 687 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 688
 689 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 690
 691 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 692
 693 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 694
 695 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 696
 697 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 698   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 699   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 700   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 701
 702 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 703
 704 Changes in 2.6:
 705
 706 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 707
 708 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 709   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 710   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 711
 712 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 713
 714 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 715
 716 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 717
 718 Changes in 2.4:
 719
 720 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 721
 722 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 723
 724 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 725   debugging support.
 726
 727 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 728
 729 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 730   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 731   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 732   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 733
 734 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 735
 736 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 737   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 738
 739 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 740
 741 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 742   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 743
 744 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 745   Paul Kranenburg.
 746
 747 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 748   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 749
 750 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 751
 752 Changes in 2.3:
 753
 754 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 755
 756 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 757
 758 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 759   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 760   again too.
 761
 762 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 763   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 764   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 765   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 766   in the "dist" directory.
 767
 768 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 769   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 770   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 771
 772 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 773   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 774   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 775   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 776
 777 * Irix 5 support.
 778
 779 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 780   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 781
 782 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 783   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 784   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 785   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 786
 787 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 788   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 789   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 790   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 791
 792 Changes in 2.2:
 793
 794 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 795
 796 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 797   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 798   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 799   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 800   reliable.
 801
 802 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 803   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 804   messages about "internal errors".
 805
 806 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 807   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 808
 809 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 810   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 811   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 812   known.
 813
 814 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 815   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 816   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 817   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 818   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 819   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 820   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 821
 822 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 823   support is in progress.
 824
 825 Changes in 2.1:
 826
 827 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 828   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 829
 830 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 831   with gcc now.
 832
 833 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 834   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 835
 836 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 837   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 838   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 839
 840 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 841
 842 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 843
 844 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 845
 846 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 847
 848 Changes in 2.0:
 849
 850 * Mostly bug fixes.
 851
 852 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 853
 854 Changes in 1.94:
 855
 856 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 857   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 858   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 859   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 860   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 861   fully merged yet.)
 862
 863 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 864   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 865
 866 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 867   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 868
 869 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 870   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 871   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 872   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 873   coming.
 874
 875 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 876
 877 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 878   Youngdale.
 879
 880 Changes in 1.93.01:
 881
 882 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 883
 884 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 885
 886 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 887   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 888   can be distinguished from the register.
 889
 890 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 891   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 892
 893 \f
 894 Copyright (C) 2012-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 895
 896 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 897 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 898 notice and this notice are preserved.
 899
 900 Local variables:
 901 fill-column: 79
 902 End: