gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
   4   instructions.
   5
   6 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3 LLSC
   7   Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure time option
   8   to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure option is not used
   9   to "no".
  10
  11 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
  12   processors.
  13
  14 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
  15   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
  16
  17 Changes in 2.32:
  18
  19 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  20   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  21
  22 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  23   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  24   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  25   to "no".
  26
  27 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  28
  29 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  30
  31 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  32
  33 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  34
  35 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  36   ASE.
  37
  38 Changes in 2.31:
  39
  40 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  41   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  42   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  43
  44 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  45
  46 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  47
  48 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  49
  50 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  51   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  52   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  53   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  54   to "no".
  55
  56 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  57
  58 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  59   shorter instruction encoding.
  60
  61 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  62   x86 targets.
  63
  64 Changes in 2.30:
  65
  66 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  67
  68 Changes in 2.29:
  69
  70 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  71
  72 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  73
  74 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  75   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  76   that the registers are invalid.
  77
  78 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  79
  80 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  81   added to the ARM port.
  82
  83 Changes in 2.28:
  84
  85 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  86
  87 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  88
  89 Changes in 2.27:
  90
  91 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  92
  93 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  94   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  95
  96 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  97   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  98   port.
  99
 100 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 101   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 102   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 103
 104 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 105   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 106   default.  Default to no.
 107
 108 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 109   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 110
 111 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 112   based targets.
 113
 114 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 115   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 116   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 117
 118 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 119   whether to generate relax relocations.
 120
 121 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 122   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 123
 124 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 125
 126 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 127   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 128
 129 Changes in 2.26:
 130
 131 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 132   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 133
 134 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 135   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 136
 137 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 138   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 139   level languages.
 140
 141 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 142   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 143
 144 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 145   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 146   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 147
 148 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 149   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 150   been added to the ARM port.
 151
 152 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 153   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 154   targets.
 155
 156 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 157
 158 Changes in 2.25:
 159
 160 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 161
 162 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 163
 164 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 165   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 166
 167 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 168
 169 Changes in 2.24:
 170
 171 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 172
 173 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 174   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 175
 176 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 177
 178 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 179
 180 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 181
 182 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 183
 184 Changes in 2.23:
 185
 186 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 187
 188 * Add support for S12X processor.
 189
 190 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 191
 192 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 193
 194 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 195   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 196
 197 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 198
 199 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 200
 201 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 202
 203 Changes in 2.22:
 204
 205 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 206
 207 Changes in 2.21:
 208
 209 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 210
 211 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 212
 213 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 214   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 215   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 216   2.20.1.
 217
 218 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 219
 220 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 221   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 222   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 223   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 224
 225 Changes in 2.20:
 226
 227 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 228
 229 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 230   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 231   process.
 232
 233 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 234   in binary rather than text.
 235
 236 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 237
 238 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 239   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 240
 241 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 242
 243 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 244   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 245   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 246   the value.
 247
 248 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 249
 250 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 251
 252 Changes in 2.19:
 253
 254 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 255   tables without runtime relocation.
 256
 257 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 258   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 259
 260 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 261   targets.
 262
 263 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 264   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 265   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 266   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 267
 268 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 269   instructions with VEX prefix.
 270
 271 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 272
 273 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 274   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 275   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 276
 277 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 278   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 279
 280 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 281
 282 Changes in 2.18:
 283
 284 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 285
 286 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 287
 288 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 289   relocations.
 290
 291 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 292
 293 * Add support for Score target.
 294
 295 Changes in 2.17:
 296
 297 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 298
 299 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 300
 301 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 302
 303 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 304   switches can be read from <file>.
 305
 306 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 307   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 308   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 309
 310 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 311   documentation for how this works.
 312
 313 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 314   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 315   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 316
 317 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 318   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 319   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 320   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 321   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 322
 323 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 324   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 325   assembler.
 326
 327 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 328
 329 Changes in 2.16:
 330
 331 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 332
 333 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 334
 335 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 336   targets.
 337
 338 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 339   mode.
 340
 341 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 342
 343 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 344
 345 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 346   preferred debug format.
 347
 348 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 349
 350 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 351
 352 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 353   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 354
 355 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 356
 357 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 358   instrucitons.
 359
 360 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 361
 362 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 363   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 364
 365 Changes in 2.15:
 366
 367 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 368   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 369
 370 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 371
 372 * Added support for ARM V6.
 373
 374 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 375
 376 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 377
 378 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 379   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 380
 381 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 382   definitions created by ".req".
 383
 384 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 385
 386 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 387   information with GNU extensions.
 388
 389 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 390
 391 * Added support for v850e1.
 392
 393 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 394   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 395   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 396   switch disables the optimization.
 397
 398 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 399   existing -non_shared option.
 400
 401 Changes in 2.14:
 402
 403 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 404
 405 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 406
 407 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 408
 409 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 410   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 411
 412 * Support for SH2E added.
 413
 414 * GASP has now been removed.
 415
 416 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 417   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 418
 419 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 420
 421 Changes in 2.13:
 422
 423 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 424   and FR500 included.
 425
 426 * Support for DLX processor added.
 427
 428 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 429   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 430
 431 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 432   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 433   the currently specified base.
 434
 435 Changes in 2.12:
 436
 437 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 438
 439 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 440
 441 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 442   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 443   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 444   compatibility.
 445
 446 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 447   the ARM assembler.
 448
 449 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 450   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 451
 452 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 453   but still works for compatability.
 454
 455 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 456   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 457   -n will turn on the warning.
 458
 459 Changes in 2.11:
 460
 461 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 462
 463 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 464
 465 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 466
 467 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 468
 469 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 470
 471 * Support for IA-64.
 472
 473 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 474
 475 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 476
 477 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 478
 479 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 480   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 481   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 482
 483 Changes in 2.10:
 484
 485 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 486   operand when altering the flags field.
 487
 488 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 489
 490 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 491
 492 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 493
 494 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 495
 496 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 497
 498 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 499
 500 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 501
 502 * picoJava architecture support added.
 503
 504 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 505
 506 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 507   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 508
 509 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 510
 511 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 512
 513 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 514
 515 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 516   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 517   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 518   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 519
 520 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 521
 522 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 523
 524 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 525
 526 * i960 ELF support added.
 527
 528 * ARM ELF support added.
 529
 530 Changes in 2.9:
 531
 532 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 533
 534 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 535   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 536
 537 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 538
 539 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 540   listing.
 541
 542 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 543
 544 Changes in 2.8:
 545
 546 * BeOS support added.
 547
 548 * MIPS16 support added.
 549
 550 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 551
 552 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 553
 554 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 555   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 556
 557 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 558   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 559   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 560   all.
 561
 562 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 563
 564 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 565   conditionals in listings.
 566
 567 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 568   the symbol is already defined.
 569
 570 Changes in 2.7:
 571
 572 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 573   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 574   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 575   added.
 576
 577 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 578
 579 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 580
 581 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 582
 583 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 584
 585 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 586
 587 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 588   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 589   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 590   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 591
 592 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 593
 594 Changes in 2.6:
 595
 596 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 597
 598 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 599   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 600   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 601
 602 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 603
 604 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 605
 606 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 607
 608 Changes in 2.4:
 609
 610 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 611
 612 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 613
 614 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 615   debugging support.
 616
 617 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 618
 619 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 620   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 621   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 622   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 623
 624 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 625
 626 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 627   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 628
 629 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 630
 631 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 632   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 633
 634 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 635   Paul Kranenburg.
 636
 637 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 638   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 639
 640 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 641
 642 Changes in 2.3:
 643
 644 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 645
 646 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 647
 648 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 649   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 650   again too.
 651
 652 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 653   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 654   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 655   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 656   in the "dist" directory.
 657
 658 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 659   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 660   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 661
 662 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 663   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 664   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 665   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 666
 667 * Irix 5 support.
 668
 669 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 670   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 671
 672 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 673   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 674   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 675   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 676
 677 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 678   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 679   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 680   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 681
 682 Changes in 2.2:
 683
 684 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 685
 686 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 687   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 688   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 689   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 690   reliable.
 691
 692 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 693   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 694   messages about "internal errors".
 695
 696 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 697   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 698
 699 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 700   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 701   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 702   known.
 703
 704 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 705   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 706   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 707   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 708   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 709   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 710   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 711
 712 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 713   support is in progress.
 714
 715 Changes in 2.1:
 716
 717 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 718   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 719
 720 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 721   with gcc now.
 722
 723 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 724   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 725
 726 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 727   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 728   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 729
 730 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 731
 732 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 733
 734 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 735
 736 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 737
 738 Changes in 2.0:
 739
 740 * Mostly bug fixes.
 741
 742 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 743
 744 Changes in 1.94:
 745
 746 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 747   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 748   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 749   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 750   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 751   fully merged yet.)
 752
 753 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 754   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 755
 756 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 757   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 758
 759 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 760   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 761   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 762   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 763   coming.
 764
 765 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 766
 767 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 768   Youngdale.
 769
 770 Changes in 1.93.01:
 771
 772 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 773
 774 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 775
 776 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 777   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 778   can be distinguished from the register.
 779
 780 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 781   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 782
 783 \f
 784 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 785
 786 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 787 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 788 notice and this notice are preserved.
 789
 790 Local variables:
 791 fill-column: 79
 792 End: