gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Outputs of .ds.x directive and .tfloat directive with hex input from
   4   x86 assembler have been reduced from 12 bytes to 10 bytes to match the
   5   output of .tfloat directive.
   6
   7 * Add support for Intel AVX512_FP16 instructions.
   8
   9 Changes in 2.37:
  10
  11 * arm-symbianelf support removed.
  12
  13 * Add support for Realm Management Extension (RME) for AArch64.
  14
  15 Changes in 2.36:
  16
  17 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
  18
  19 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
  20
  21 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
  22
  23 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  24
  25 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  26   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  27
  28 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE, Cortex-A78C and Cortex-X1 for
  29   AArch64 and ARM.
  30   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  31
  32 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  33   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension)and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer
  34   Extension) system registers for AArch64.
  35
  36 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  37
  38 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  39   AArch64.
  40
  41 * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
  42
  43 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  44   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  45
  46 * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for -march in
  47   AArch64.
  48
  49 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  50
  51 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  52
  53 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  54   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  55   generation, if that is active.
  56
  57 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  58   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  59
  60 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  61
  62 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  63
  64 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  65
  66 * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN flag, which can be applied to
  67   sections using the 'R' flag in the .section directive.
  68   SHF_GNU_RETAIN specifies that the section should not be garbage
  69   collected by the linker.  It requires the GNU or FreeBSD ELF OSABIs.
  70
  71 Changes in 2.35:
  72
  73 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
  74
  75 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
  76   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
  77
  78 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
  79
  80 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  81   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  82   CVE-2020-0551.
  83
  84 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  85   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  86   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  87
  88 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  89
  90 Changes in 2.34:
  91
  92 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  93   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  94   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  95   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  96
  97 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  98
  99 * Add support for z80-elf target.
 100
 101 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
 102   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
 103   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
 104
 105 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
 106
 107 Changes in 2.33:
 108
 109 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
 110   instructions.
 111
 112 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
 113   instructions.
 114
 115 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
 116   instructions.
 117
 118 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
 119   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
 120   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 121   option is not used to "no".
 122
 123 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 124   processors.
 125
 126 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 127   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 128
 129 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 130   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 131   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 132   encoding.
 133
 134 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 135   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 136
 137 Changes in 2.32:
 138
 139 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 140   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 141
 142 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 143   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 144   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 145   to "no".
 146
 147 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 148
 149 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 150
 151 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 152
 153 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 154
 155 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 156   ASE.
 157
 158 Changes in 2.31:
 159
 160 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 161   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 162   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 163
 164 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 165
 166 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 167
 168 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 169
 170 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 171   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 172   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 173   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 174   to "no".
 175
 176 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 177
 178 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 179   shorter instruction encoding.
 180
 181 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 182   x86 targets.
 183
 184 Changes in 2.30:
 185
 186 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 187
 188 Changes in 2.29:
 189
 190 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 191
 192 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 193
 194 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 195   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 196   that the registers are invalid.
 197
 198 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 199
 200 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 201   added to the ARM port.
 202
 203 Changes in 2.28:
 204
 205 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 206
 207 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 208
 209 Changes in 2.27:
 210
 211 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 212
 213 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 214   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 215
 216 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 217   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 218   port.
 219
 220 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 221   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 222   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 223
 224 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 225   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 226   default.  Default to no.
 227
 228 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 229   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 230
 231 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 232   based targets.
 233
 234 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 235   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 236   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 237
 238 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 239   whether to generate relax relocations.
 240
 241 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 242   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 243
 244 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 245
 246 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 247   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 248
 249 Changes in 2.26:
 250
 251 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 252   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 253
 254 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 255   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 256
 257 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 258   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 259   level languages.
 260
 261 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 262   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 263
 264 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 265   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 266   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 267
 268 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 269   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 270   been added to the ARM port.
 271
 272 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 273   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 274   targets.
 275
 276 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 277
 278 Changes in 2.25:
 279
 280 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 281
 282 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 283
 284 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 285   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 286
 287 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 288
 289 Changes in 2.24:
 290
 291 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 292
 293 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 294   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 295
 296 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 297
 298 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 299
 300 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 301
 302 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 303
 304 Changes in 2.23:
 305
 306 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 307
 308 * Add support for S12X processor.
 309
 310 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 311
 312 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 313
 314 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 315   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 316
 317 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 318
 319 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 320
 321 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 322
 323 Changes in 2.22:
 324
 325 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 326
 327 Changes in 2.21:
 328
 329 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 330
 331 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 332
 333 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 334   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 335   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 336   2.20.1.
 337
 338 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 339
 340 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 341   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 342   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 343   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 344
 345 Changes in 2.20:
 346
 347 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 348
 349 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 350   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 351   process.
 352
 353 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 354   in binary rather than text.
 355
 356 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 357
 358 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 359   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 360
 361 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 362
 363 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 364   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 365   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 366   the value.
 367
 368 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 369
 370 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 371
 372 Changes in 2.19:
 373
 374 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 375   tables without runtime relocation.
 376
 377 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 378   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 379
 380 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 381   targets.
 382
 383 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 384   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 385   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 386   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 387
 388 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 389   instructions with VEX prefix.
 390
 391 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 392
 393 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 394   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 395   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 396
 397 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 398   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 399
 400 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 401
 402 Changes in 2.18:
 403
 404 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 405
 406 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 407
 408 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 409   relocations.
 410
 411 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 412
 413 * Add support for Score target.
 414
 415 Changes in 2.17:
 416
 417 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 418
 419 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 420
 421 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 422
 423 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 424   switches can be read from <file>.
 425
 426 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 427   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 428   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 429
 430 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 431   documentation for how this works.
 432
 433 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 434   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 435   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 436
 437 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 438   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 439   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 440   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 441   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 442
 443 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 444   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 445   assembler.
 446
 447 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 448
 449 Changes in 2.16:
 450
 451 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 452
 453 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 454
 455 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 456   targets.
 457
 458 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 459   mode.
 460
 461 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 462
 463 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 464
 465 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 466   preferred debug format.
 467
 468 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 469
 470 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 471
 472 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 473   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 474
 475 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 476
 477 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 478   instrucitons.
 479
 480 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 481
 482 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 483   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 484
 485 Changes in 2.15:
 486
 487 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 488   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 489
 490 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 491
 492 * Added support for ARM V6.
 493
 494 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 495
 496 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 497
 498 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 499   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 500
 501 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 502   definitions created by ".req".
 503
 504 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 505
 506 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 507   information with GNU extensions.
 508
 509 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 510
 511 * Added support for v850e1.
 512
 513 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 514   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 515   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 516   switch disables the optimization.
 517
 518 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 519   existing -non_shared option.
 520
 521 Changes in 2.14:
 522
 523 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 524
 525 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 526
 527 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 528
 529 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 530   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 531
 532 * Support for SH2E added.
 533
 534 * GASP has now been removed.
 535
 536 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 537   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 538
 539 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 540
 541 Changes in 2.13:
 542
 543 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 544   and FR500 included.
 545
 546 * Support for DLX processor added.
 547
 548 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 549   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 550
 551 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 552   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 553   the currently specified base.
 554
 555 Changes in 2.12:
 556
 557 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 558
 559 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 560
 561 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 562   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 563   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 564   compatibility.
 565
 566 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 567   the ARM assembler.
 568
 569 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 570   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 571
 572 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 573   but still works for compatability.
 574
 575 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 576   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 577   -n will turn on the warning.
 578
 579 Changes in 2.11:
 580
 581 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 582
 583 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 584
 585 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 586
 587 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 588
 589 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 590
 591 * Support for IA-64.
 592
 593 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 594
 595 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 596
 597 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 598
 599 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 600   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 601   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 602
 603 Changes in 2.10:
 604
 605 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 606   operand when altering the flags field.
 607
 608 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 609
 610 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 611
 612 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 613
 614 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 615
 616 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 617
 618 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 619
 620 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 621
 622 * picoJava architecture support added.
 623
 624 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 625
 626 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 627   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 628
 629 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 630
 631 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 632
 633 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 634
 635 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 636   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 637   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 638   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 639
 640 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 641
 642 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 643
 644 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 645
 646 * i960 ELF support added.
 647
 648 * ARM ELF support added.
 649
 650 Changes in 2.9:
 651
 652 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 653
 654 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 655   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 656
 657 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 658
 659 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 660   listing.
 661
 662 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 663
 664 Changes in 2.8:
 665
 666 * BeOS support added.
 667
 668 * MIPS16 support added.
 669
 670 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 671
 672 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 673
 674 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 675   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 676
 677 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 678   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 679   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 680   all.
 681
 682 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 683
 684 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 685   conditionals in listings.
 686
 687 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 688   the symbol is already defined.
 689
 690 Changes in 2.7:
 691
 692 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 693   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 694   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 695   added.
 696
 697 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 698
 699 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 700
 701 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 702
 703 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 704
 705 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 706
 707 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 708   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 709   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 710   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 711
 712 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 713
 714 Changes in 2.6:
 715
 716 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 717
 718 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 719   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 720   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 721
 722 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 723
 724 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 725
 726 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 727
 728 Changes in 2.4:
 729
 730 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 731
 732 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 733
 734 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 735   debugging support.
 736
 737 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 738
 739 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 740   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 741   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 742   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 743
 744 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 745
 746 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 747   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 748
 749 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 750
 751 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 752   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 753
 754 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 755   Paul Kranenburg.
 756
 757 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 758   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 759
 760 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 761
 762 Changes in 2.3:
 763
 764 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 765
 766 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 767
 768 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 769   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 770   again too.
 771
 772 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 773   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 774   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 775   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 776   in the "dist" directory.
 777
 778 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 779   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 780   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 781
 782 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 783   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 784   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 785   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 786
 787 * Irix 5 support.
 788
 789 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 790   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 791
 792 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 793   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 794   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 795   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 796
 797 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 798   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 799   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 800   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 801
 802 Changes in 2.2:
 803
 804 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 805
 806 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 807   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 808   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 809   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 810   reliable.
 811
 812 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 813   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 814   messages about "internal errors".
 815
 816 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 817   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 818
 819 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 820   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 821   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 822   known.
 823
 824 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 825   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 826   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 827   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 828   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 829   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 830   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 831
 832 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 833   support is in progress.
 834
 835 Changes in 2.1:
 836
 837 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 838   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 839
 840 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 841   with gcc now.
 842
 843 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 844   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 845
 846 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 847   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 848   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 849
 850 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 851
 852 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 853
 854 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 855
 856 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 857
 858 Changes in 2.0:
 859
 860 * Mostly bug fixes.
 861
 862 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 863
 864 Changes in 1.94:
 865
 866 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 867   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 868   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 869   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 870   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 871   fully merged yet.)
 872
 873 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 874   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 875
 876 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 877   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 878
 879 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 880   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 881   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 882   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 883   coming.
 884
 885 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 886
 887 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 888   Youngdale.
 889
 890 Changes in 1.93.01:
 891
 892 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 893
 894 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 895
 896 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 897   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 898   can be distinguished from the register.
 899
 900 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 901   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 902
 903 \f
 904 Copyright (C) 2012-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 905
 906 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 907 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 908 notice and this notice are preserved.
 909
 910 Local variables:
 911 fill-column: 79
 912 End: