gas/NEWS

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