gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3 LLSC
   4   Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure time option
   5   to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure option is not used
   6   to "no".
   7
   8 Changes in 2.32:
   9
  10 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  11   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  12
  13 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  14   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  15   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  16   to "no".
  17
  18 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  19
  20 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  21
  22 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  23
  24 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  25
  26 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  27   ASE.
  28
  29 Changes in 2.31:
  30
  31 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  32   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  33   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  34
  35 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  36
  37 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  38
  39 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  40
  41 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  42   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  43   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  44   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  45   to "no".
  46
  47 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  48
  49 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  50   shorter instruction encoding.
  51
  52 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  53   x86 targets.
  54
  55 Changes in 2.30:
  56
  57 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  58
  59 Changes in 2.29:
  60
  61 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  62
  63 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  64
  65 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  66   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  67   that the registers are invalid.
  68
  69 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  70
  71 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  72   added to the ARM port.
  73
  74 Changes in 2.28:
  75
  76 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  77
  78 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  79
  80 Changes in 2.27:
  81
  82 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  83
  84 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  85   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  86
  87 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  88   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  89   port.
  90
  91 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
  92   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
  93   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
  94
  95 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
  96   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
  97   default.  Default to no.
  98
  99 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 100   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 101
 102 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 103   based targets.
 104
 105 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 106   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 107   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 108
 109 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 110   whether to generate relax relocations.
 111
 112 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 113   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 114
 115 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 116
 117 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 118   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 119
 120 Changes in 2.26:
 121
 122 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 123   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 124
 125 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 126   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 127
 128 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 129   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 130   level languages.
 131
 132 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 133   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 134
 135 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 136   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 137   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 138
 139 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 140   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 141   been added to the ARM port.
 142
 143 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 144   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 145   targets.
 146
 147 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 148
 149 Changes in 2.25:
 150
 151 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 152
 153 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 154
 155 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 156   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 157
 158 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 159
 160 Changes in 2.24:
 161
 162 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 163
 164 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 165   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 166
 167 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 168
 169 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 170
 171 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 172
 173 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 174
 175 Changes in 2.23:
 176
 177 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 178
 179 * Add support for S12X processor.
 180
 181 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 182
 183 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 184
 185 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 186   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 187
 188 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 189
 190 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 191
 192 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 193
 194 Changes in 2.22:
 195
 196 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 197
 198 Changes in 2.21:
 199
 200 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 201
 202 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 203
 204 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 205   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 206   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 207   2.20.1.
 208
 209 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 210
 211 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 212   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 213   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 214   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 215
 216 Changes in 2.20:
 217
 218 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 219
 220 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 221   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 222   process.
 223
 224 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 225   in binary rather than text.
 226
 227 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 228
 229 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 230   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 231
 232 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 233
 234 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 235   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 236   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 237   the value.
 238
 239 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 240
 241 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 242
 243 Changes in 2.19:
 244
 245 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 246   tables without runtime relocation.
 247
 248 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 249   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 250
 251 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 252   targets.
 253
 254 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 255   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 256   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 257   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 258
 259 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 260   instructions with VEX prefix.
 261
 262 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 263
 264 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 265   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 266   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 267
 268 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 269   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 270
 271 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 272
 273 Changes in 2.18:
 274
 275 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 276
 277 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 278
 279 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 280   relocations.
 281
 282 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 283
 284 * Add support for Score target.
 285
 286 Changes in 2.17:
 287
 288 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 289
 290 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 291
 292 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 293
 294 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 295   switches can be read from <file>.
 296
 297 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 298   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 299   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 300
 301 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 302   documentation for how this works.
 303
 304 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 305   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 306   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 307
 308 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 309   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 310   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 311   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 312   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 313
 314 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 315   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 316   assembler.
 317
 318 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 319
 320 Changes in 2.16:
 321
 322 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 323
 324 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 325
 326 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 327   targets.
 328
 329 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 330   mode.
 331
 332 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 333
 334 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 335
 336 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 337   preferred debug format.
 338
 339 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 340
 341 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 342
 343 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 344   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 345
 346 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 347
 348 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 349   instrucitons.
 350
 351 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 352
 353 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 354   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 355
 356 Changes in 2.15:
 357
 358 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 359   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 360
 361 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 362
 363 * Added support for ARM V6.
 364
 365 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 366
 367 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 368
 369 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 370   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 371
 372 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 373   definitions created by ".req".
 374
 375 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 376
 377 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 378   information with GNU extensions.
 379
 380 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 381
 382 * Added support for v850e1.
 383
 384 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 385   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 386   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 387   switch disables the optimization.
 388
 389 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 390   existing -non_shared option.
 391
 392 Changes in 2.14:
 393
 394 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 395
 396 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 397
 398 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 399
 400 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 401   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 402
 403 * Support for SH2E added.
 404
 405 * GASP has now been removed.
 406
 407 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 408   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 409
 410 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 411
 412 Changes in 2.13:
 413
 414 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 415   and FR500 included.
 416
 417 * Support for DLX processor added.
 418
 419 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 420   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 421
 422 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 423   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 424   the currently specified base.
 425
 426 Changes in 2.12:
 427
 428 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 429
 430 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 431
 432 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 433   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 434   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 435   compatibility.
 436
 437 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 438   the ARM assembler.
 439
 440 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 441   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 442
 443 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 444   but still works for compatability.
 445
 446 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 447   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 448   -n will turn on the warning.
 449
 450 Changes in 2.11:
 451
 452 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 453
 454 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 455
 456 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 457
 458 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 459
 460 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 461
 462 * Support for IA-64.
 463
 464 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 465
 466 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 467
 468 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 469
 470 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 471   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 472   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 473
 474 Changes in 2.10:
 475
 476 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 477   operand when altering the flags field.
 478
 479 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 480
 481 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 482
 483 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 484
 485 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 486
 487 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 488
 489 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 490
 491 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 492
 493 * picoJava architecture support added.
 494
 495 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 496
 497 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 498   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 499
 500 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 501
 502 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 503
 504 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 505
 506 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 507   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 508   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 509   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 510
 511 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 512
 513 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 514
 515 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 516
 517 * i960 ELF support added.
 518
 519 * ARM ELF support added.
 520
 521 Changes in 2.9:
 522
 523 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 524
 525 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 526   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 527
 528 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 529
 530 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 531   listing.
 532
 533 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 534
 535 Changes in 2.8:
 536
 537 * BeOS support added.
 538
 539 * MIPS16 support added.
 540
 541 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 542
 543 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 544
 545 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 546   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 547
 548 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 549   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 550   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 551   all.
 552
 553 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 554
 555 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 556   conditionals in listings.
 557
 558 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 559   the symbol is already defined.
 560
 561 Changes in 2.7:
 562
 563 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 564   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 565   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 566   added.
 567
 568 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 569
 570 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 571
 572 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 573
 574 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 575
 576 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 577
 578 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 579   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 580   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 581   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 582
 583 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 584
 585 Changes in 2.6:
 586
 587 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 588
 589 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 590   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 591   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 592
 593 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 594
 595 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 596
 597 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 598
 599 Changes in 2.4:
 600
 601 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 602
 603 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 604
 605 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 606   debugging support.
 607
 608 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 609
 610 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 611   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 612   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 613   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 614
 615 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 616
 617 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 618   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 619
 620 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 621
 622 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 623   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 624
 625 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 626   Paul Kranenburg.
 627
 628 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 629   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 630
 631 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 632
 633 Changes in 2.3:
 634
 635 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 636
 637 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 638
 639 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 640   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 641   again too.
 642
 643 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 644   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 645   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 646   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 647   in the "dist" directory.
 648
 649 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 650   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 651   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 652
 653 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 654   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 655   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 656   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 657
 658 * Irix 5 support.
 659
 660 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 661   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 662
 663 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 664   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 665   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 666   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 667
 668 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 669   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 670   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 671   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 672
 673 Changes in 2.2:
 674
 675 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 676
 677 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 678   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 679   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 680   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 681   reliable.
 682
 683 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 684   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 685   messages about "internal errors".
 686
 687 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 688   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 689
 690 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 691   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 692   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 693   known.
 694
 695 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 696   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 697   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 698   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 699   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 700   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 701   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 702
 703 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 704   support is in progress.
 705
 706 Changes in 2.1:
 707
 708 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 709   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 710
 711 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 712   with gcc now.
 713
 714 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 715   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 716
 717 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 718   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 719   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 720
 721 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 722
 723 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 724
 725 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 726
 727 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 728
 729 Changes in 2.0:
 730
 731 * Mostly bug fixes.
 732
 733 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 734
 735 Changes in 1.94:
 736
 737 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 738   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 739   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 740   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 741   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 742   fully merged yet.)
 743
 744 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 745   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 746
 747 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 748   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 749
 750 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 751   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 752   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 753   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 754   coming.
 755
 756 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 757
 758 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 759   Youngdale.
 760
 761 Changes in 1.93.01:
 762
 763 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 764
 765 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 766
 767 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 768   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 769   can be distinguished from the register.
 770
 771 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 772   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 773
 774 \f
 775 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 776
 777 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 778 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 779 notice and this notice are preserved.
 780
 781 Local variables:
 782 fill-column: 79
 783 End: