gas/NEWS

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