2 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port. Support
3 for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
6 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
7 .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
8 instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
10 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
11 assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
12 default. Default to no.
14 * New command line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
15 whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
17 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
20 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
21 x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default. Default to
22 yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
24 * New command line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
25 whether to generate relax relocations.
27 * New command line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
28 lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
30 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
34 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
35 decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
37 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures. Remove
38 assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
40 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
41 them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
44 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support. The
45 previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
47 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
48 Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
49 extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
51 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port. Support
52 for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
53 been added to the ARM port.
55 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
56 --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
59 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
63 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
65 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
67 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
68 Studio tool. Support is enabled via the new command line option -mccs.
70 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
74 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
76 * Add -gdwarf-sections command line option to enable per-code-section
77 generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
79 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
81 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
83 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
85 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
89 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
91 * Add support for S12X processor.
93 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
95 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
97 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
98 directives. These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
100 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
102 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
104 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
108 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
112 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
114 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
116 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
117 for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified. This
118 feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
121 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
123 * New command line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
124 compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
125 file. Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
126 gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
130 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
132 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
133 pseudo op. It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
136 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
137 in binary rather than text.
139 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
141 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
142 with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
144 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
146 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
147 indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
148 not be use. Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
151 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
153 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
157 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
158 tables without runtime relocation.
160 * New command line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
161 adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
163 * New command line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
166 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command line switch to
167 generate a listing output. The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
168 various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
169 command line options used, and a time stamp.
171 * New command line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
172 instructions with VEX prefix.
174 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
176 * New command line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
177 -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
178 -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
180 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
181 pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
183 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
187 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
189 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
191 * Added gas .reloc pseudo. This is a low-level interface for creating
194 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
196 * Add support for Score target.
200 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
202 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
204 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
206 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
207 switches can be read from <file>.
209 * The SH target supports a new command line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
210 if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
211 character. This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
213 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
214 documentation for how this works.
216 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
217 tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
218 --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
220 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
221 also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
222 known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
223 characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
224 be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
226 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
227 for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
230 * New command line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
234 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
236 * New command line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
238 * New command line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
241 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
244 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
246 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
248 * Add a -g command line option to generate debug information in the target's
249 preferred debug format.
251 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
253 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
255 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
256 on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
258 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
260 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
263 * New command line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
265 * New command line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
266 added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
270 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
271 deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
273 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
275 * Added support for ARM V6.
277 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
279 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
281 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
282 specification has been added to the arm assembler.
284 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
285 definitions created by ".req".
287 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
289 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
290 information with GNU extensions.
292 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
294 * Added support for v850e1.
296 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler. By default, x86 GAS replaces
297 multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
298 with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi. This
299 switch disables the optimization.
301 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler. It was not useful, and confused the
302 existing -non_shared option.
306 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
308 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
310 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
312 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
313 uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
315 * Support for SH2E added.
317 * GASP has now been removed.
319 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
320 DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
322 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
326 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
329 * Support for DLX processor added.
331 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use
332 the macro facilities in GAS instead.
334 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
335 explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
336 the currently specified base.
340 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
342 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
344 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
345 specifying the target instruction set. The old method of specifying the
346 target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
349 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
352 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
353 in the assembly. Contributed by Anders Norlander.
355 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
356 but still works for compatability.
358 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
359 generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command line option
360 -n will turn on the warning.
364 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
366 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
368 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
370 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
372 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
376 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
378 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
380 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
382 * x86 gas -q command line option quietens warnings about register size changes
383 due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
384 translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
388 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
389 operand when altering the flags field.
391 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
393 * Support for IBM 370 ELF. Somewhat experimental.
395 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
397 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
399 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
401 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
403 * New --fatal-warnings option.
405 * picoJava architecture support added.
407 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
409 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
410 assembly programs with intel syntax.
412 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
414 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
416 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
418 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386. This change will
419 produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
420 of gas accepted. If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
421 older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
423 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
425 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
427 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
429 * i960 ELF support added.
431 * ARM ELF support added.
435 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
437 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
438 and gcc 2.8. The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
440 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
442 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
445 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
449 * BeOS support added.
451 * MIPS16 support added.
453 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
455 * Alpha/VMS support added.
457 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
458 --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
460 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
461 maximum number of bytes to skip. If doing the alignment would require
462 skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
465 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
467 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
468 conditionals in listings.
470 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
471 the symbol is already defined.
475 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
476 etc.) if -mregnames is used. Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
477 can be used any time. PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
480 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
482 * PowerPC ELF support added.
484 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
486 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
488 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
490 * SCO ELF support added. For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
491 default is to build COFF-only support. To get a set of tools that generate
492 ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
493 target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
495 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
499 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
501 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode. Use -M or --mri to select
502 MRI mode. The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
503 ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
505 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
507 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
509 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
513 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
515 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
517 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
520 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
522 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
523 provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
524 features not available in the native assembler. If the native assembler is
525 used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
527 * Usage message is available with "--help".
529 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included. (Actually, it was in 2.3
530 also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
532 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
534 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
535 Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
537 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
540 * Improved Alpha support. Immediate constants can have a much larger range
541 now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
543 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
547 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
549 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
551 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
552 based on mail received from various people. The `-h#' option should work
555 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law. Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
556 with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6. As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
557 version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3. You can retrieve
558 this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
559 in the "dist" directory.
561 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
562 simple tests okay. I haven't put it through extensive testing. (GNU make is
563 currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
565 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format). The gas support is
566 based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format. I'm afraid
567 the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
568 making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
572 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
573 couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
575 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
576 flexibility in evaluating them in some cases. Some details of relocation
577 handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
578 added, to make the Alpha port easier.
580 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times. This is
581 intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
582 various phases of compilation. (You should be able to get all of them
583 printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
587 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
589 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
590 have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
591 gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
592 impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
595 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
596 displayed. This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
597 messages about "internal errors".
599 * ELF support is falling into place. Support for the 386 should be working.
600 Support for SPARC Solaris is in. HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
602 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
603 boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant. This permits slightly
604 more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
607 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
608 If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
609 sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section. The format of the .stab
610 section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
611 its string table. For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
612 to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
613 that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
615 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported. SPARC LynxOS
616 support is in progress.
620 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
621 incorporated, but not well tested yet.
623 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
626 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
627 suggested by Ronald Cole.
629 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah. This
630 includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
631 2.x. Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
633 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
635 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
637 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
639 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
645 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
649 * BFD merge is partly done. Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
650 "--with-bfd-assembler" option. Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
651 format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it. It's the default only for OS "elf"
652 or "solaris". (ELF isn't really supported yet. It needs work. I've got
653 some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
656 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half. It should now compile under gcc
657 without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
659 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size. This should result in
660 saving a little bit of space at runtime.
662 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in. The OSF
663 code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet. (I can
664 make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.) Ralph's code, for BSD
665 4.4, supports a.out format. We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
668 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
670 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
675 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
677 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
679 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names. For COFF format, which
680 doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
681 can be distinguished from the register.
683 * Last public release was 1.38. Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
684 of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
687 Copyright (C) 2012-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
689 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
690 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
691 notice and this notice are preserved.