gas/NEWS

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