gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
   4   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
   5   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
   6   to "no".
   7
   8 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
   9
  10 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  11
  12 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  13
  14 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  15
  16 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  17   ASE.
  18
  19 Changes in 2.31:
  20
  21 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  22   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  23   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  24
  25 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  26
  27 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  28
  29 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  30
  31 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  32   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  33   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  34   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  35   to "no".
  36
  37 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  38
  39 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  40   shorter instruction encoding.
  41
  42 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  43   x86 targets.
  44
  45 Changes in 2.30:
  46
  47 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  48
  49 Changes in 2.29:
  50
  51 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  52
  53 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  54
  55 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  56   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  57   that the registers are invalid.
  58
  59 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  60
  61 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  62   added to the ARM port.
  63
  64 Changes in 2.28:
  65
  66 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  67
  68 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  69
  70 Changes in 2.27:
  71
  72 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  73
  74 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  75   sections up to their alignment boundary.
  76
  77 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
  78   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
  79   port.
  80
  81 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
  82   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
  83   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
  84
  85 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
  86   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
  87   default.  Default to no.
  88
  89 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
  90   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
  91
  92 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
  93   based targets.
  94
  95 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
  96   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
  97   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
  98
  99 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 100   whether to generate relax relocations.
 101
 102 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 103   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 104
 105 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 106
 107 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 108   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 109
 110 Changes in 2.26:
 111
 112 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 113   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 114
 115 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 116   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 117
 118 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 119   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 120   level languages.
 121
 122 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 123   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 124
 125 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 126   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 127   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 128
 129 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 130   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 131   been added to the ARM port.
 132
 133 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 134   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 135   targets.
 136
 137 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 138
 139 Changes in 2.25:
 140
 141 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 142
 143 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 144
 145 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 146   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 147
 148 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 149
 150 Changes in 2.24:
 151
 152 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 153
 154 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 155   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 156
 157 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 158
 159 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 160
 161 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 162
 163 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 164
 165 Changes in 2.23:
 166
 167 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 168
 169 * Add support for S12X processor.
 170
 171 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 172
 173 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 174
 175 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 176   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 177
 178 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 179
 180 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 181
 182 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 183
 184 Changes in 2.22:
 185
 186 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 187
 188 Changes in 2.21:
 189
 190 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 191
 192 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 193
 194 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 195   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 196   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 197   2.20.1.
 198
 199 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 200
 201 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 202   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 203   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 204   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 205
 206 Changes in 2.20:
 207
 208 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 209
 210 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 211   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 212   process.
 213
 214 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 215   in binary rather than text.
 216
 217 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 218
 219 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 220   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 221
 222 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 223
 224 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 225   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 226   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 227   the value.
 228
 229 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 230
 231 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 232
 233 Changes in 2.19:
 234
 235 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 236   tables without runtime relocation.
 237
 238 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 239   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 240
 241 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 242   targets.
 243
 244 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 245   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 246   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 247   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 248
 249 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 250   instructions with VEX prefix.
 251
 252 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 253
 254 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 255   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 256   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 257
 258 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 259   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 260
 261 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 262
 263 Changes in 2.18:
 264
 265 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 266
 267 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 268
 269 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 270   relocations.
 271
 272 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 273
 274 * Add support for Score target.
 275
 276 Changes in 2.17:
 277
 278 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 279
 280 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 281
 282 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 283
 284 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 285   switches can be read from <file>.
 286
 287 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 288   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 289   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 290
 291 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 292   documentation for how this works.
 293
 294 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 295   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 296   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 297
 298 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 299   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 300   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 301   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 302   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 303
 304 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 305   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 306   assembler.
 307
 308 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 309
 310 Changes in 2.16:
 311
 312 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 313
 314 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 315
 316 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 317   targets.
 318
 319 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 320   mode.
 321
 322 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 323
 324 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 325
 326 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 327   preferred debug format.
 328
 329 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 330
 331 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 332
 333 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 334   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 335
 336 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 337
 338 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 339   instrucitons.
 340
 341 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 342
 343 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 344   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 345
 346 Changes in 2.15:
 347
 348 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 349   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 350
 351 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 352
 353 * Added support for ARM V6.
 354
 355 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 356
 357 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 358
 359 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 360   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 361
 362 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 363   definitions created by ".req".
 364
 365 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 366
 367 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 368   information with GNU extensions.
 369
 370 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 371
 372 * Added support for v850e1.
 373
 374 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 375   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 376   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 377   switch disables the optimization.
 378
 379 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 380   existing -non_shared option.
 381
 382 Changes in 2.14:
 383
 384 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 385
 386 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 387
 388 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 389
 390 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 391   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 392
 393 * Support for SH2E added.
 394
 395 * GASP has now been removed.
 396
 397 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 398   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 399
 400 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 401
 402 Changes in 2.13:
 403
 404 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 405   and FR500 included.
 406
 407 * Support for DLX processor added.
 408
 409 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 410   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 411
 412 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 413   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 414   the currently specified base.
 415
 416 Changes in 2.12:
 417
 418 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 419
 420 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 421
 422 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 423   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 424   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 425   compatibility.
 426
 427 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 428   the ARM assembler.
 429
 430 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 431   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 432
 433 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 434   but still works for compatability.
 435
 436 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 437   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 438   -n will turn on the warning.
 439
 440 Changes in 2.11:
 441
 442 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 443
 444 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 445
 446 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 447
 448 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 449
 450 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 451
 452 * Support for IA-64.
 453
 454 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 455
 456 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 457
 458 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 459
 460 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 461   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 462   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 463
 464 Changes in 2.10:
 465
 466 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 467   operand when altering the flags field.
 468
 469 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 470
 471 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 472
 473 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 474
 475 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 476
 477 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 478
 479 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 480
 481 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 482
 483 * picoJava architecture support added.
 484
 485 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 486
 487 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 488   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 489
 490 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 491
 492 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 493
 494 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 495
 496 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 497   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 498   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 499   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 500
 501 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 502
 503 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 504
 505 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 506
 507 * i960 ELF support added.
 508
 509 * ARM ELF support added.
 510
 511 Changes in 2.9:
 512
 513 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 514
 515 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 516   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 517
 518 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 519
 520 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 521   listing.
 522
 523 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 524
 525 Changes in 2.8:
 526
 527 * BeOS support added.
 528
 529 * MIPS16 support added.
 530
 531 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 532
 533 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 534
 535 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 536   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 537
 538 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 539   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 540   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 541   all.
 542
 543 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 544
 545 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 546   conditionals in listings.
 547
 548 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 549   the symbol is already defined.
 550
 551 Changes in 2.7:
 552
 553 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 554   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 555   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 556   added.
 557
 558 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 559
 560 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 561
 562 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 563
 564 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 565
 566 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 567
 568 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 569   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 570   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 571   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 572
 573 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 574
 575 Changes in 2.6:
 576
 577 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 578
 579 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 580   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 581   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 582
 583 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 584
 585 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 586
 587 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 588
 589 Changes in 2.4:
 590
 591 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 592
 593 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 594
 595 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 596   debugging support.
 597
 598 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 599
 600 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 601   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 602   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 603   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 604
 605 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 606
 607 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 608   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 609
 610 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 611
 612 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 613   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 614
 615 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 616   Paul Kranenburg.
 617
 618 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 619   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 620
 621 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 622
 623 Changes in 2.3:
 624
 625 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 626
 627 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 628
 629 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 630   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 631   again too.
 632
 633 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 634   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 635   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 636   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 637   in the "dist" directory.
 638
 639 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 640   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 641   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 642
 643 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 644   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 645   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 646   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 647
 648 * Irix 5 support.
 649
 650 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 651   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 652
 653 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 654   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 655   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 656   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 657
 658 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 659   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 660   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 661   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 662
 663 Changes in 2.2:
 664
 665 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 666
 667 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 668   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 669   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 670   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 671   reliable.
 672
 673 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 674   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 675   messages about "internal errors".
 676
 677 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 678   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 679
 680 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 681   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 682   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 683   known.
 684
 685 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 686   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 687   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 688   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 689   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 690   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 691   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 692
 693 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 694   support is in progress.
 695
 696 Changes in 2.1:
 697
 698 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 699   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 700
 701 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 702   with gcc now.
 703
 704 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 705   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 706
 707 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 708   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 709   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 710
 711 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 712
 713 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 714
 715 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 716
 717 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 718
 719 Changes in 2.0:
 720
 721 * Mostly bug fixes.
 722
 723 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 724
 725 Changes in 1.94:
 726
 727 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 728   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 729   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 730   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 731   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 732   fully merged yet.)
 733
 734 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 735   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 736
 737 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 738   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 739
 740 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 741   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 742   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 743   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 744   coming.
 745
 746 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 747
 748 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 749   Youngdale.
 750
 751 Changes in 1.93.01:
 752
 753 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 754
 755 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 756
 757 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 758   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 759   can be distinguished from the register.
 760
 761 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 762   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 763
 764 \f
 765 Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 766
 767 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 768 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 769 notice and this notice are preserved.
 770
 771 Local variables:
 772 fill-column: 79
 773 End: