gas/NEWS

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