gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.33:
   4
   5 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
   6   instructions.
   7
   8 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
   9   instructions.
  10
  11 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
  12   instructions.
  13
  14 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
  15   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
  16   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
  17   option is not used to "no".
  18
  19 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
  20   processors.
  21
  22 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
  23   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
  24
  25 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
  26   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
  27   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
  28   encoding.
  29
  30 Changes in 2.32:
  31
  32 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  33   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  34
  35 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  36   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  37   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  38   to "no".
  39
  40 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  41
  42 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  43
  44 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  45
  46 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  47
  48 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  49   ASE.
  50
  51 Changes in 2.31:
  52
  53 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  54   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  55   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  56
  57 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  58
  59 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  60
  61 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  62
  63 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  64   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  65   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  66   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  67   to "no".
  68
  69 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  70
  71 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  72   shorter instruction encoding.
  73
  74 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  75   x86 targets.
  76
  77 Changes in 2.30:
  78
  79 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  80
  81 Changes in 2.29:
  82
  83 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  84
  85 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  86
  87 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  88   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  89   that the registers are invalid.
  90
  91 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  92
  93 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  94   added to the ARM port.
  95
  96 Changes in 2.28:
  97
  98 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  99
 100 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 101
 102 Changes in 2.27:
 103
 104 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 105
 106 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 107   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 108
 109 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 110   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 111   port.
 112
 113 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 114   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 115   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 116
 117 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 118   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 119   default.  Default to no.
 120
 121 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 122   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 123
 124 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 125   based targets.
 126
 127 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 128   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 129   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 130
 131 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 132   whether to generate relax relocations.
 133
 134 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 135   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 136
 137 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 138
 139 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 140   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 141
 142 Changes in 2.26:
 143
 144 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 145   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 146
 147 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 148   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 149
 150 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 151   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 152   level languages.
 153
 154 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 155   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 156
 157 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 158   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 159   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 160
 161 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 162   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 163   been added to the ARM port.
 164
 165 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 166   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 167   targets.
 168
 169 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 170
 171 Changes in 2.25:
 172
 173 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 174
 175 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 176
 177 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 178   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 179
 180 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 181
 182 Changes in 2.24:
 183
 184 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 185
 186 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 187   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 188
 189 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 190
 191 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 192
 193 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 194
 195 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 196
 197 Changes in 2.23:
 198
 199 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 200
 201 * Add support for S12X processor.
 202
 203 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 204
 205 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 206
 207 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 208   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 209
 210 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 211
 212 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 213
 214 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 215
 216 Changes in 2.22:
 217
 218 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 219
 220 Changes in 2.21:
 221
 222 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 223
 224 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 225
 226 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 227   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 228   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 229   2.20.1.
 230
 231 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 232
 233 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 234   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 235   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 236   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 237
 238 Changes in 2.20:
 239
 240 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 241
 242 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 243   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 244   process.
 245
 246 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 247   in binary rather than text.
 248
 249 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 250
 251 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 252   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 253
 254 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 255
 256 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 257   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 258   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 259   the value.
 260
 261 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 262
 263 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 264
 265 Changes in 2.19:
 266
 267 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 268   tables without runtime relocation.
 269
 270 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 271   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 272
 273 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 274   targets.
 275
 276 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 277   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 278   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 279   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 280
 281 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 282   instructions with VEX prefix.
 283
 284 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 285
 286 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 287   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 288   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 289
 290 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 291   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 292
 293 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 294
 295 Changes in 2.18:
 296
 297 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 298
 299 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 300
 301 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 302   relocations.
 303
 304 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 305
 306 * Add support for Score target.
 307
 308 Changes in 2.17:
 309
 310 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 311
 312 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 313
 314 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 315
 316 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 317   switches can be read from <file>.
 318
 319 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 320   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 321   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 322
 323 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 324   documentation for how this works.
 325
 326 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 327   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 328   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 329
 330 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 331   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 332   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 333   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 334   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 335
 336 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 337   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 338   assembler.
 339
 340 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 341
 342 Changes in 2.16:
 343
 344 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 345
 346 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 347
 348 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 349   targets.
 350
 351 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 352   mode.
 353
 354 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 355
 356 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 357
 358 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 359   preferred debug format.
 360
 361 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 362
 363 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 364
 365 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 366   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 367
 368 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 369
 370 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 371   instrucitons.
 372
 373 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 374
 375 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 376   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 377
 378 Changes in 2.15:
 379
 380 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 381   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 382
 383 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 384
 385 * Added support for ARM V6.
 386
 387 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 388
 389 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 390
 391 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 392   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 393
 394 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 395   definitions created by ".req".
 396
 397 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 398
 399 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 400   information with GNU extensions.
 401
 402 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 403
 404 * Added support for v850e1.
 405
 406 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 407   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 408   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 409   switch disables the optimization.
 410
 411 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 412   existing -non_shared option.
 413
 414 Changes in 2.14:
 415
 416 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 417
 418 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 419
 420 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 421
 422 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 423   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 424
 425 * Support for SH2E added.
 426
 427 * GASP has now been removed.
 428
 429 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 430   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 431
 432 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 433
 434 Changes in 2.13:
 435
 436 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 437   and FR500 included.
 438
 439 * Support for DLX processor added.
 440
 441 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 442   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 443
 444 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 445   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 446   the currently specified base.
 447
 448 Changes in 2.12:
 449
 450 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 451
 452 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 453
 454 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 455   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 456   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 457   compatibility.
 458
 459 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 460   the ARM assembler.
 461
 462 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 463   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 464
 465 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 466   but still works for compatability.
 467
 468 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 469   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 470   -n will turn on the warning.
 471
 472 Changes in 2.11:
 473
 474 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 475
 476 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 477
 478 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 479
 480 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 481
 482 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 483
 484 * Support for IA-64.
 485
 486 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 487
 488 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 489
 490 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 491
 492 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 493   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 494   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 495
 496 Changes in 2.10:
 497
 498 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 499   operand when altering the flags field.
 500
 501 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 502
 503 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 504
 505 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 506
 507 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 508
 509 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 510
 511 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 512
 513 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 514
 515 * picoJava architecture support added.
 516
 517 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 518
 519 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 520   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 521
 522 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 523
 524 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 525
 526 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 527
 528 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 529   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 530   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 531   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 532
 533 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 534
 535 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 536
 537 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 538
 539 * i960 ELF support added.
 540
 541 * ARM ELF support added.
 542
 543 Changes in 2.9:
 544
 545 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 546
 547 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 548   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 549
 550 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 551
 552 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 553   listing.
 554
 555 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 556
 557 Changes in 2.8:
 558
 559 * BeOS support added.
 560
 561 * MIPS16 support added.
 562
 563 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 564
 565 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 566
 567 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 568   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 569
 570 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 571   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 572   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 573   all.
 574
 575 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 576
 577 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 578   conditionals in listings.
 579
 580 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 581   the symbol is already defined.
 582
 583 Changes in 2.7:
 584
 585 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 586   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 587   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 588   added.
 589
 590 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 591
 592 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 593
 594 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 595
 596 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 597
 598 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 599
 600 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 601   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 602   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 603   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 604
 605 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 606
 607 Changes in 2.6:
 608
 609 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 610
 611 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 612   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 613   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 614
 615 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 616
 617 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 618
 619 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 620
 621 Changes in 2.4:
 622
 623 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 624
 625 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 626
 627 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 628   debugging support.
 629
 630 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 631
 632 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 633   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 634   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 635   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 636
 637 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 638
 639 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 640   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 641
 642 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 643
 644 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 645   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 646
 647 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 648   Paul Kranenburg.
 649
 650 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 651   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 652
 653 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 654
 655 Changes in 2.3:
 656
 657 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 658
 659 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 660
 661 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 662   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 663   again too.
 664
 665 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 666   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 667   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 668   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 669   in the "dist" directory.
 670
 671 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 672   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 673   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 674
 675 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 676   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 677   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 678   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 679
 680 * Irix 5 support.
 681
 682 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 683   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 684
 685 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 686   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 687   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 688   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 689
 690 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 691   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 692   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 693   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 694
 695 Changes in 2.2:
 696
 697 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 698
 699 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 700   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 701   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 702   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 703   reliable.
 704
 705 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 706   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 707   messages about "internal errors".
 708
 709 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 710   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 711
 712 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 713   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 714   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 715   known.
 716
 717 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 718   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 719   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 720   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 721   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 722   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 723   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 724
 725 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 726   support is in progress.
 727
 728 Changes in 2.1:
 729
 730 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 731   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 732
 733 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 734   with gcc now.
 735
 736 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 737   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 738
 739 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 740   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 741   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 742
 743 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 744
 745 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 746
 747 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 748
 749 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 750
 751 Changes in 2.0:
 752
 753 * Mostly bug fixes.
 754
 755 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 756
 757 Changes in 1.94:
 758
 759 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 760   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 761   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 762   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 763   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 764   fully merged yet.)
 765
 766 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 767   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 768
 769 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 770   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 771
 772 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 773   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 774   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 775   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 776   coming.
 777
 778 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 779
 780 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 781   Youngdale.
 782
 783 Changes in 1.93.01:
 784
 785 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 786
 787 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 788
 789 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 790   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 791   can be distinguished from the register.
 792
 793 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 794   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 795
 796 \f
 797 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 798
 799 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 800 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 801 notice and this notice are preserved.
 802
 803 Local variables:
 804 fill-column: 79
 805 End: