gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.31:
   4
   5 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
   6   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
   7   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
   8
   9 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  10
  11 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  12
  13 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  14
  15 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  16   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  17   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  18   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  19   to "no".
  20
  21 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  22
  23 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  24   shorter instruction encoding.
  25
  26 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  27   x86 targets.
  28
  29 Changes in 2.30:
  30
  31 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  32
  33 Changes in 2.29:
  34
  35 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  36
  37 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  38
  39 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  40   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  41   that the registers are invalid.
  42
  43 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  44
  45 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  46   added to the ARM port.
  47
  48 Changes in 2.28:
  49
  50 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  51
  52 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  53
  54 Changes in 2.27:
  55
  56 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  57
  58 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  59   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  60
  61 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  62   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  63   port.
  64
  65 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
  66   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
  67   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
  68
  69 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
  70   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
  71   default.  Default to no.
  72
  73 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
  74   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
  75
  76 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
  77   based targets.
  78
  79 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
  80   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
  81   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
  82
  83 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
  84   whether to generate relax relocations.
  85
  86 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
  87   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
  88
  89 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
  90
  91 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
  92   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
  93
  94 Changes in 2.26:
  95
  96 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
  97   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
  98
  99 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 100   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 101
 102 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 103   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 104   level languages.
 105
 106 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 107   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 108
 109 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 110   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 111   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 112
 113 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 114   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 115   been added to the ARM port.
 116
 117 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 118   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 119   targets.
 120
 121 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 122
 123 Changes in 2.25:
 124
 125 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 126
 127 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 128
 129 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 130   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 131
 132 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 133
 134 Changes in 2.24:
 135
 136 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 137
 138 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 139   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 140
 141 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 142
 143 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 144
 145 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 146
 147 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 148
 149 Changes in 2.23:
 150
 151 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 152
 153 * Add support for S12X processor.
 154
 155 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 156
 157 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 158
 159 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 160   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 161
 162 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 163
 164 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 165
 166 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 167
 168 Changes in 2.22:
 169
 170 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 171
 172 Changes in 2.21:
 173
 174 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 175
 176 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 177
 178 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 179   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 180   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 181   2.20.1.
 182
 183 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 184
 185 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 186   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 187   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 188   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 189
 190 Changes in 2.20:
 191
 192 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 193
 194 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 195   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 196   process.
 197
 198 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 199   in binary rather than text.
 200
 201 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 202
 203 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 204   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 205
 206 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 207
 208 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 209   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 210   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 211   the value.
 212
 213 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 214
 215 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 216
 217 Changes in 2.19:
 218
 219 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 220   tables without runtime relocation.
 221
 222 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 223   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 224
 225 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 226   targets.
 227
 228 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 229   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 230   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 231   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 232
 233 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 234   instructions with VEX prefix.
 235
 236 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 237
 238 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 239   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 240   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 241
 242 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 243   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 244
 245 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 246
 247 Changes in 2.18:
 248
 249 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 250
 251 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 252
 253 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 254   relocations.
 255
 256 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 257
 258 * Add support for Score target.
 259
 260 Changes in 2.17:
 261
 262 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 263
 264 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 265
 266 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 267
 268 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 269   switches can be read from <file>.
 270
 271 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 272   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 273   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 274
 275 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 276   documentation for how this works.
 277
 278 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 279   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 280   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 281
 282 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 283   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 284   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 285   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 286   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 287
 288 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 289   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 290   assembler.
 291
 292 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 293
 294 Changes in 2.16:
 295
 296 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 297
 298 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 299
 300 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 301   targets.
 302
 303 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 304   mode.
 305
 306 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 307
 308 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 309
 310 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 311   preferred debug format.
 312
 313 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 314
 315 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 316
 317 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 318   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 319
 320 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 321
 322 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 323   instrucitons.
 324
 325 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 326
 327 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 328   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 329
 330 Changes in 2.15:
 331
 332 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 333   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 334
 335 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 336
 337 * Added support for ARM V6.
 338
 339 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 340
 341 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 342
 343 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 344   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 345
 346 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 347   definitions created by ".req".
 348
 349 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 350
 351 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 352   information with GNU extensions.
 353
 354 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 355
 356 * Added support for v850e1.
 357
 358 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 359   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 360   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 361   switch disables the optimization.
 362
 363 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 364   existing -non_shared option.
 365
 366 Changes in 2.14:
 367
 368 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 369
 370 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 371
 372 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 373
 374 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 375   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 376
 377 * Support for SH2E added.
 378
 379 * GASP has now been removed.
 380
 381 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 382   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 383
 384 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 385
 386 Changes in 2.13:
 387
 388 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 389   and FR500 included.
 390
 391 * Support for DLX processor added.
 392
 393 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 394   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 395
 396 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 397   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 398   the currently specified base.
 399
 400 Changes in 2.12:
 401
 402 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 403
 404 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 405
 406 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 407   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 408   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 409   compatibility.
 410
 411 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 412   the ARM assembler.
 413
 414 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 415   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 416
 417 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 418   but still works for compatability.
 419
 420 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 421   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 422   -n will turn on the warning.
 423
 424 Changes in 2.11:
 425
 426 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 427
 428 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 429
 430 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 431
 432 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 433
 434 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 435
 436 * Support for IA-64.
 437
 438 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 439
 440 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 441
 442 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 443
 444 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 445   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 446   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 447
 448 Changes in 2.10:
 449
 450 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 451   operand when altering the flags field.
 452
 453 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 454
 455 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 456
 457 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 458
 459 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 460
 461 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 462
 463 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 464
 465 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 466
 467 * picoJava architecture support added.
 468
 469 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 470
 471 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 472   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 473
 474 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 475
 476 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 477
 478 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 479
 480 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 481   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 482   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 483   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 484
 485 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 486
 487 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 488
 489 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 490
 491 * i960 ELF support added.
 492
 493 * ARM ELF support added.
 494
 495 Changes in 2.9:
 496
 497 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 498
 499 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 500   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 501
 502 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 503
 504 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 505   listing.
 506
 507 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 508
 509 Changes in 2.8:
 510
 511 * BeOS support added.
 512
 513 * MIPS16 support added.
 514
 515 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 516
 517 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 518
 519 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 520   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 521
 522 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 523   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 524   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 525   all.
 526
 527 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 528
 529 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 530   conditionals in listings.
 531
 532 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 533   the symbol is already defined.
 534
 535 Changes in 2.7:
 536
 537 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 538   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 539   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 540   added.
 541
 542 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 543
 544 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 545
 546 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 547
 548 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 549
 550 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 551
 552 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 553   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 554   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 555   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 556
 557 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 558
 559 Changes in 2.6:
 560
 561 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 562
 563 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 564   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 565   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 566
 567 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 568
 569 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 570
 571 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 572
 573 Changes in 2.4:
 574
 575 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 576
 577 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 578
 579 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 580   debugging support.
 581
 582 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 583
 584 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 585   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 586   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 587   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 588
 589 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 590
 591 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 592   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 593
 594 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 595
 596 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 597   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 598
 599 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 600   Paul Kranenburg.
 601
 602 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 603   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 604
 605 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 606
 607 Changes in 2.3:
 608
 609 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 610
 611 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 612
 613 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 614   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 615   again too.
 616
 617 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 618   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 619   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 620   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 621   in the "dist" directory.
 622
 623 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 624   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 625   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 626
 627 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 628   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 629   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 630   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 631
 632 * Irix 5 support.
 633
 634 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 635   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 636
 637 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 638   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 639   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 640   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 641
 642 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 643   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 644   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 645   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 646
 647 Changes in 2.2:
 648
 649 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 650
 651 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 652   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 653   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 654   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 655   reliable.
 656
 657 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 658   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 659   messages about "internal errors".
 660
 661 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 662   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 663
 664 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 665   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 666   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 667   known.
 668
 669 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 670   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 671   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 672   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 673   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 674   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 675   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 676
 677 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 678   support is in progress.
 679
 680 Changes in 2.1:
 681
 682 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 683   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 684
 685 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 686   with gcc now.
 687
 688 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 689   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 690
 691 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 692   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 693   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 694
 695 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 696
 697 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 698
 699 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 700
 701 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 702
 703 Changes in 2.0:
 704
 705 * Mostly bug fixes.
 706
 707 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 708
 709 Changes in 1.94:
 710
 711 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 712   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 713   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 714   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 715   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 716   fully merged yet.)
 717
 718 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 719   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 720
 721 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 722   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 723
 724 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 725   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 726   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 727   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 728   coming.
 729
 730 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 731
 732 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 733   Youngdale.
 734
 735 Changes in 1.93.01:
 736
 737 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 738
 739 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 740
 741 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 742   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 743   can be distinguished from the register.
 744
 745 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 746   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 747
 748 \f
 749 Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 750
 751 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 752 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 753 notice and this notice are preserved.
 754
 755 Local variables:
 756 fill-column: 79
 757 End: