gas/NEWS

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