gas/NEWS

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