gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Remove (rudimentary) support for the x86-64 sub-architectures Intel L1OM and
   4   Intel K1OM.
   5
   6 Changes in 2.38:
   7
   8 * Add support for AArch64 system registers that were missing in previous
   9   releases.
  10
  11 * Add support for the LoongArch instruction set.
  12
  13 * Add a command-line option, -muse-unaligned-vector-move, for x86 target
  14   to encode aligned vector move as unaligned vector move.
  15
  16 * Add support for Cortex-R52+ for Arm.
  17
  18 * Add support for Cortex-A510, Cortex-A710, Cortex-X2 for AArch64.
  19
  20 * Add support for Cortex-A710 for Arm.
  21
  22 * Add support for Scalable Matrix Extension (SME) for AArch64.
  23
  24 * The --multibyte-handling=[allow|warn|warn-sym-only] option tells the
  25   assembler what to when it encoutners multibyte characters in the input.  The
  26   default is to allow them.  Setting the option to "warn" will generate a
  27   warning message whenever any multibyte character is encountered.  Using the
  28   option to "warn-sym-only" will make the assembler generate a warning whenever a
  29   symbol is defined containing multibyte characters.  (References to undefined
  30   symbols will not generate warnings).
  31
  32 * Outputs of .ds.x directive and .tfloat directive with hex input from
  33   x86 assembler have been reduced from 12 bytes to 10 bytes to match the
  34   output of .tfloat directive.
  35
  36 * Add support for 'armv8.8-a', 'armv9-a', 'armv9.1-a', 'armv9.2-a' and
  37   'armv9.3-a' for -march in AArch64 GAS.
  38
  39 * Add support for 'armv8.7-a', 'armv8.8-a', 'armv9-a', 'armv9.1-a',
  40   'armv9.2-a' and 'armv9.3-a' for -march in Arm GAS.
  41
  42 * Add support for Intel AVX512_FP16 instructions.
  43
  44 Changes in 2.37:
  45
  46 * arm-symbianelf support removed.
  47
  48 * Add support for Realm Management Extension (RME) for AArch64.
  49
  50 Changes in 2.36:
  51
  52 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
  53
  54 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
  55
  56 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
  57
  58 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  59
  60 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  61   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  62
  63 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE, Cortex-A78C and Cortex-X1 for
  64   AArch64 and ARM.
  65   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  66
  67 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  68   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension)and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer
  69   Extension) system registers for AArch64.
  70
  71 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  72
  73 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  74   AArch64.
  75
  76 * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
  77
  78 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  79   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  80
  81 * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for -march in
  82   AArch64.
  83
  84 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  85
  86 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  87
  88 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  89   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  90   generation, if that is active.
  91
  92 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  93   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  94
  95 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  96
  97 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  98
  99 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
 100
 101 * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN flag, which can be applied to
 102   sections using the 'R' flag in the .section directive.
 103   SHF_GNU_RETAIN specifies that the section should not be garbage
 104   collected by the linker.  It requires the GNU or FreeBSD ELF OSABIs.
 105
 106 Changes in 2.35:
 107
 108 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
 109
 110 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
 111   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
 112
 113 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
 114
 115 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
 116   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
 117   CVE-2020-0551.
 118
 119 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
 120   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
 121   version 5 .debug_line sections.
 122
 123 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
 124
 125 Changes in 2.34:
 126
 127 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
 128   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
 129   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
 130   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
 131
 132 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
 133
 134 * Add support for z80-elf target.
 135
 136 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
 137   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
 138   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
 139
 140 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
 141
 142 Changes in 2.33:
 143
 144 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
 145   instructions.
 146
 147 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
 148   instructions.
 149
 150 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
 151   instructions.
 152
 153 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
 154   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
 155   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 156   option is not used to "no".
 157
 158 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 159   processors.
 160
 161 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 162   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 163
 164 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 165   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 166   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 167   encoding.
 168
 169 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 170   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 171
 172 Changes in 2.32:
 173
 174 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 175   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 176
 177 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 178   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 179   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 180   to "no".
 181
 182 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 183
 184 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 185
 186 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 187
 188 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 189
 190 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 191   ASE.
 192
 193 Changes in 2.31:
 194
 195 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 196   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 197   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 198
 199 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 200
 201 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 202
 203 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 204
 205 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 206   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 207   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 208   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 209   to "no".
 210
 211 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 212
 213 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 214   shorter instruction encoding.
 215
 216 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 217   x86 targets.
 218
 219 Changes in 2.30:
 220
 221 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 222
 223 Changes in 2.29:
 224
 225 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 226
 227 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 228
 229 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 230   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 231   that the registers are invalid.
 232
 233 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 234
 235 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 236   added to the ARM port.
 237
 238 Changes in 2.28:
 239
 240 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 241
 242 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 243
 244 Changes in 2.27:
 245
 246 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 247
 248 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 249   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 250
 251 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 252   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 253   port.
 254
 255 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 256   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 257   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 258
 259 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 260   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 261   default.  Default to no.
 262
 263 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 264   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 265
 266 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 267   based targets.
 268
 269 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 270   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 271   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 272
 273 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 274   whether to generate relax relocations.
 275
 276 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 277   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 278
 279 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 280
 281 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 282   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 283
 284 Changes in 2.26:
 285
 286 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 287   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 288
 289 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 290   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 291
 292 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 293   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 294   level languages.
 295
 296 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 297   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 298
 299 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 300   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 301   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 302
 303 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 304   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 305   been added to the ARM port.
 306
 307 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 308   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 309   targets.
 310
 311 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 312
 313 Changes in 2.25:
 314
 315 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 316
 317 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 318
 319 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 320   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 321
 322 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 323
 324 Changes in 2.24:
 325
 326 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 327
 328 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 329   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 330
 331 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 332
 333 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 334
 335 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 336
 337 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 338
 339 Changes in 2.23:
 340
 341 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 342
 343 * Add support for S12X processor.
 344
 345 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 346
 347 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 348
 349 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 350   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 351
 352 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 353
 354 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 355
 356 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 357
 358 Changes in 2.22:
 359
 360 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 361
 362 Changes in 2.21:
 363
 364 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 365
 366 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 367
 368 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 369   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 370   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 371   2.20.1.
 372
 373 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 374
 375 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 376   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 377   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 378   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 379
 380 Changes in 2.20:
 381
 382 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 383
 384 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 385   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 386   process.
 387
 388 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 389   in binary rather than text.
 390
 391 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 392
 393 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 394   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 395
 396 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 397
 398 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 399   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 400   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 401   the value.
 402
 403 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 404
 405 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 406
 407 Changes in 2.19:
 408
 409 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 410   tables without runtime relocation.
 411
 412 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 413   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 414
 415 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 416   targets.
 417
 418 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 419   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 420   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 421   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 422
 423 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 424   instructions with VEX prefix.
 425
 426 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 427
 428 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 429   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 430   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 431
 432 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 433   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 434
 435 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 436
 437 Changes in 2.18:
 438
 439 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 440
 441 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 442
 443 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 444   relocations.
 445
 446 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 447
 448 * Add support for Score target.
 449
 450 Changes in 2.17:
 451
 452 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 453
 454 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 455
 456 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 457
 458 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 459   switches can be read from <file>.
 460
 461 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 462   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 463   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 464
 465 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 466   documentation for how this works.
 467
 468 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 469   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 470   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 471
 472 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 473   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 474   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 475   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 476   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 477
 478 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 479   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 480   assembler.
 481
 482 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 483
 484 Changes in 2.16:
 485
 486 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 487
 488 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 489
 490 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 491   targets.
 492
 493 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 494   mode.
 495
 496 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 497
 498 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 499
 500 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 501   preferred debug format.
 502
 503 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 504
 505 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 506
 507 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 508   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 509
 510 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 511
 512 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 513   instrucitons.
 514
 515 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 516
 517 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 518   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 519
 520 Changes in 2.15:
 521
 522 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 523   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 524
 525 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 526
 527 * Added support for ARM V6.
 528
 529 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 530
 531 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 532
 533 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 534   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 535
 536 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 537   definitions created by ".req".
 538
 539 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 540
 541 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 542   information with GNU extensions.
 543
 544 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 545
 546 * Added support for v850e1.
 547
 548 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 549   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 550   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 551   switch disables the optimization.
 552
 553 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 554   existing -non_shared option.
 555
 556 Changes in 2.14:
 557
 558 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 559
 560 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 561
 562 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 563
 564 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 565   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 566
 567 * Support for SH2E added.
 568
 569 * GASP has now been removed.
 570
 571 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 572   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 573
 574 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 575
 576 Changes in 2.13:
 577
 578 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 579   and FR500 included.
 580
 581 * Support for DLX processor added.
 582
 583 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 584   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 585
 586 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 587   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 588   the currently specified base.
 589
 590 Changes in 2.12:
 591
 592 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 593
 594 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 595
 596 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 597   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 598   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 599   compatibility.
 600
 601 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 602   the ARM assembler.
 603
 604 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 605   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 606
 607 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 608   but still works for compatability.
 609
 610 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 611   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 612   -n will turn on the warning.
 613
 614 Changes in 2.11:
 615
 616 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 617
 618 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 619
 620 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 621
 622 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 623
 624 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 625
 626 * Support for IA-64.
 627
 628 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 629
 630 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 631
 632 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 633
 634 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 635   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 636   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 637
 638 Changes in 2.10:
 639
 640 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 641   operand when altering the flags field.
 642
 643 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 644
 645 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 646
 647 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 648
 649 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 650
 651 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 652
 653 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 654
 655 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 656
 657 * picoJava architecture support added.
 658
 659 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 660
 661 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 662   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 663
 664 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 665
 666 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 667
 668 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 669
 670 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 671   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 672   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 673   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 674
 675 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 676
 677 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 678
 679 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 680
 681 * i960 ELF support added.
 682
 683 * ARM ELF support added.
 684
 685 Changes in 2.9:
 686
 687 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 688
 689 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 690   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 691
 692 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 693
 694 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 695   listing.
 696
 697 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 698
 699 Changes in 2.8:
 700
 701 * BeOS support added.
 702
 703 * MIPS16 support added.
 704
 705 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 706
 707 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 708
 709 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 710   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 711
 712 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 713   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 714   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 715   all.
 716
 717 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 718
 719 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 720   conditionals in listings.
 721
 722 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 723   the symbol is already defined.
 724
 725 Changes in 2.7:
 726
 727 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 728   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 729   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 730   added.
 731
 732 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 733
 734 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 735
 736 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 737
 738 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 739
 740 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 741
 742 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 743   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 744   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 745   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 746
 747 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 748
 749 Changes in 2.6:
 750
 751 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 752
 753 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 754   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 755   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 756
 757 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 758
 759 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 760
 761 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 762
 763 Changes in 2.4:
 764
 765 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 766
 767 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 768
 769 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 770   debugging support.
 771
 772 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 773
 774 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 775   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 776   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 777   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 778
 779 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 780
 781 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 782   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 783
 784 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 785
 786 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 787   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 788
 789 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 790   Paul Kranenburg.
 791
 792 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 793   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 794
 795 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 796
 797 Changes in 2.3:
 798
 799 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 800
 801 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 802
 803 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 804   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 805   again too.
 806
 807 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 808   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 809   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 810   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 811   in the "dist" directory.
 812
 813 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 814   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 815   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 816
 817 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 818   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 819   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 820   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 821
 822 * Irix 5 support.
 823
 824 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 825   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 826
 827 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 828   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 829   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 830   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 831
 832 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 833   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 834   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 835   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 836
 837 Changes in 2.2:
 838
 839 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 840
 841 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 842   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 843   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 844   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 845   reliable.
 846
 847 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 848   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 849   messages about "internal errors".
 850
 851 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 852   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 853
 854 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 855   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 856   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 857   known.
 858
 859 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 860   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 861   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 862   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 863   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 864   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 865   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 866
 867 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 868   support is in progress.
 869
 870 Changes in 2.1:
 871
 872 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 873   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 874
 875 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 876   with gcc now.
 877
 878 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 879   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 880
 881 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 882   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 883   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 884
 885 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 886
 887 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 888
 889 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 890
 891 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 892
 893 Changes in 2.0:
 894
 895 * Mostly bug fixes.
 896
 897 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 898
 899 Changes in 1.94:
 900
 901 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 902   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 903   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 904   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 905   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 906   fully merged yet.)
 907
 908 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 909   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 910
 911 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 912   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 913
 914 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 915   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 916   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 917   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 918   coming.
 919
 920 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 921
 922 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 923   Youngdale.
 924
 925 Changes in 1.93.01:
 926
 927 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 928
 929 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 930
 931 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 932   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 933   can be distinguished from the register.
 934
 935 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 936   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 937
 938 \f
 939 Copyright (C) 2012-2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 940
 941 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 942 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 943 notice and this notice are preserved.
 944
 945 Local variables:
 946 fill-column: 79
 947 End: