gas/NEWS

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