gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add a -g command line option to generate debug information in the target's
   4   preferred debug format.
   5
   6 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
   7
   8 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
   9
  10 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
  11   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
  12
  13 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
  14
  15 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
  16   instrucitons.
  17
  18 * New command line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
  19   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
  20
  21 Changes in 2.15:
  22
  23 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
  24   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
  25
  26 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
  27
  28 * Added support for ARM V6.
  29
  30 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
  31
  32 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
  33
  34 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
  35   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
  36
  37 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
  38   definitions created by ".req".
  39
  40 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
  41
  42 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
  43   information with GNU extensions.
  44
  45 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
  46
  47 * Added support for v850e1.
  48
  49 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
  50   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
  51   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
  52   switch disables the optimization.
  53
  54 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
  55   existing -non_shared option.
  56
  57 Changes in 2.14:
  58
  59 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
  60
  61 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
  62
  63 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
  64
  65 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
  66   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
  67
  68 * Support for SH2E added.
  69
  70 * GASP has now been removed.
  71
  72 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
  73   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
  74
  75 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
  76
  77 Changes in 2.13:
  78
  79 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
  80   and FR500 included.
  81
  82 * Support for DLX processor added.
  83
  84 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
  85   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
  86
  87 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
  88   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
  89   the currently specified base.
  90
  91 Changes in 2.12:
  92
  93 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
  94
  95 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
  96
  97 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
  98   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
  99   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 100   compatibility.
 101
 102 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 103   the ARM assembler.
 104
 105 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 106   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 107
 108 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 109   but still works for compatability.
 110
 111 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 112   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command line option
 113   -n will turn on the warning.
 114
 115 Changes in 2.11:
 116
 117 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 118
 119 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 120
 121 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 122
 123 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 124
 125 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 126
 127 * Support for IA-64.
 128
 129 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 130
 131 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 132
 133 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 134
 135 * x86 gas -q command line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 136   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 137   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 138
 139 Changes in 2.10:
 140
 141 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 142   operand when altering the flags field.
 143
 144 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 145
 146 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 147
 148 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 149
 150 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 151
 152 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 153
 154 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 155
 156 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 157
 158 * picoJava architecture support added.
 159
 160 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 161
 162 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 163   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 164
 165 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 166
 167 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 168
 169 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 170
 171 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 172   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 173   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 174   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 175
 176 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 177
 178 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 179
 180 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 181
 182 * i960 ELF support added.
 183
 184 * ARM ELF support added.
 185
 186 Changes in 2.9:
 187
 188 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 189
 190 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 191   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 192
 193 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 194
 195 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 196   listing.
 197
 198 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 199
 200 Changes in 2.8:
 201
 202 * BeOS support added.
 203
 204 * MIPS16 support added.
 205
 206 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 207
 208 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 209
 210 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 211   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 212
 213 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 214   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 215   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 216   all.
 217
 218 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 219
 220 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 221   conditionals in listings.
 222
 223 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 224   the symbol is already defined.
 225
 226 Changes in 2.7:
 227
 228 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 229   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 230   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 231   added.
 232
 233 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 234
 235 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 236
 237 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 238
 239 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 240
 241 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 242
 243 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 244   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 245   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 246   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 247
 248 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 249
 250 Changes in 2.6:
 251
 252 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 253
 254 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 255   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 256   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 257
 258 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 259
 260 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 261
 262 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 263
 264 Changes in 2.4:
 265
 266 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 267
 268 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 269
 270 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 271   debugging support.
 272
 273 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 274
 275 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 276   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 277   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 278   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 279
 280 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 281
 282 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 283   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 284
 285 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 286
 287 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 288   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 289
 290 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 291   Paul Kranenburg.
 292
 293 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 294   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 295
 296 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 297
 298 Changes in 2.3:
 299
 300 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 301
 302 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 303
 304 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 305   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 306   again too.
 307
 308 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 309   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 310   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 311   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 312   in the "dist" directory.
 313
 314 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 315   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 316   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 317
 318 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 319   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 320   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 321   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 322
 323 * Irix 5 support.
 324
 325 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 326   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 327
 328 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 329   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 330   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 331   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 332
 333 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 334   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 335   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 336   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 337
 338 Changes in 2.2:
 339
 340 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 341
 342 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 343   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 344   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 345   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 346   reliable.
 347
 348 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 349   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 350   messages about "internal errors".
 351
 352 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 353   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 354
 355 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 356   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 357   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 358   known.
 359
 360 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 361   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 362   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 363   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 364   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 365   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 366   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 367
 368 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 369   support is in progress.
 370
 371 Changes in 2.1:
 372
 373 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 374   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 375
 376 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 377   with gcc now.
 378
 379 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 380   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 381
 382 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 383   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 384   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 385
 386 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 387
 388 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 389
 390 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 391
 392 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 393
 394 Changes in 2.0:
 395
 396 * Mostly bug fixes.
 397
 398 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 399
 400 Changes in 1.94:
 401
 402 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 403   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 404   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 405   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 406   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 407   fully merged yet.)
 408
 409 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 410   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 411
 412 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 413   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 414
 415 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 416   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 417   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 418   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 419   coming.
 420
 421 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 422
 423 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 424   Youngdale.
 425
 426 Changes in 1.93.01:
 427
 428 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 429
 430 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 431
 432 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 433   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 434   can be distinguished from the register.
 435
 436 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 437   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 438
 439 \f
 440 Local variables:
 441 fill-column: 79
 442 End: