gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 Changes in 2.33:
   4
   5 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
   6   instructions.
   7
   8 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
   9   instructions.
  10
  11 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
  12   instructions.
  13
  14 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
  15   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
  16   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
  17   option is not used to "no".
  18
  19 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
  20   processors.
  21
  22 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
  23   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
  24
  25 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
  26   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
  27   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
  28   encoding.
  29
  30 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
  31   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
  32
  33 Changes in 2.32:
  34
  35 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  36   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  37
  38 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  39   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  40   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  41   to "no".
  42
  43 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  44
  45 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  46
  47 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  48
  49 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  50
  51 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  52   ASE.
  53
  54 Changes in 2.31:
  55
  56 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  57   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  58   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  59
  60 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  61
  62 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  63
  64 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  65
  66 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  67   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  68   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  69   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  70   to "no".
  71
  72 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  73
  74 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  75   shorter instruction encoding.
  76
  77 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  78   x86 targets.
  79
  80 Changes in 2.30:
  81
  82 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  83
  84 Changes in 2.29:
  85
  86 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  87
  88 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  89
  90 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  91   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  92   that the registers are invalid.
  93
  94 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  95
  96 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  97   added to the ARM port.
  98
  99 Changes in 2.28:
 100
 101 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 102
 103 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 104
 105 Changes in 2.27:
 106
 107 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 108
 109 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 110   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 111
 112 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 113   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 114   port.
 115
 116 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 117   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 118   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 119
 120 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 121   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 122   default.  Default to no.
 123
 124 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 125   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 126
 127 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 128   based targets.
 129
 130 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 131   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 132   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 133
 134 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 135   whether to generate relax relocations.
 136
 137 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 138   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 139
 140 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 141
 142 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 143   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 144
 145 Changes in 2.26:
 146
 147 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 148   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 149
 150 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 151   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 152
 153 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 154   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 155   level languages.
 156
 157 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 158   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 159
 160 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 161   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 162   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 163
 164 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 165   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 166   been added to the ARM port.
 167
 168 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 169   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 170   targets.
 171
 172 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 173
 174 Changes in 2.25:
 175
 176 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 177
 178 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 179
 180 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 181   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 182
 183 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 184
 185 Changes in 2.24:
 186
 187 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 188
 189 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 190   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 191
 192 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 193
 194 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 195
 196 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 197
 198 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 199
 200 Changes in 2.23:
 201
 202 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 203
 204 * Add support for S12X processor.
 205
 206 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 207
 208 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 209
 210 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 211   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 212
 213 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 214
 215 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 216
 217 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 218
 219 Changes in 2.22:
 220
 221 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 222
 223 Changes in 2.21:
 224
 225 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 226
 227 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 228
 229 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 230   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 231   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 232   2.20.1.
 233
 234 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 235
 236 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 237   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 238   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 239   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 240
 241 Changes in 2.20:
 242
 243 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 244
 245 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 246   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 247   process.
 248
 249 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 250   in binary rather than text.
 251
 252 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 253
 254 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 255   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 256
 257 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 258
 259 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 260   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 261   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 262   the value.
 263
 264 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 265
 266 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 267
 268 Changes in 2.19:
 269
 270 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 271   tables without runtime relocation.
 272
 273 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 274   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 275
 276 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 277   targets.
 278
 279 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 280   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 281   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 282   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 283
 284 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 285   instructions with VEX prefix.
 286
 287 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 288
 289 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 290   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 291   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 292
 293 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 294   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 295
 296 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 297
 298 Changes in 2.18:
 299
 300 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 301
 302 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 303
 304 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 305   relocations.
 306
 307 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 308
 309 * Add support for Score target.
 310
 311 Changes in 2.17:
 312
 313 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 314
 315 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 316
 317 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 318
 319 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 320   switches can be read from <file>.
 321
 322 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 323   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 324   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 325
 326 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 327   documentation for how this works.
 328
 329 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 330   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 331   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 332
 333 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 334   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 335   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 336   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 337   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 338
 339 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 340   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 341   assembler.
 342
 343 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 344
 345 Changes in 2.16:
 346
 347 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 348
 349 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 350
 351 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 352   targets.
 353
 354 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 355   mode.
 356
 357 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 358
 359 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 360
 361 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 362   preferred debug format.
 363
 364 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 365
 366 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 367
 368 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 369   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 370
 371 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 372
 373 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 374   instrucitons.
 375
 376 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 377
 378 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 379   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 380
 381 Changes in 2.15:
 382
 383 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 384   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 385
 386 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 387
 388 * Added support for ARM V6.
 389
 390 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 391
 392 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 393
 394 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 395   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 396
 397 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 398   definitions created by ".req".
 399
 400 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 401
 402 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 403   information with GNU extensions.
 404
 405 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 406
 407 * Added support for v850e1.
 408
 409 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 410   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 411   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 412   switch disables the optimization.
 413
 414 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 415   existing -non_shared option.
 416
 417 Changes in 2.14:
 418
 419 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 420
 421 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 422
 423 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 424
 425 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 426   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 427
 428 * Support for SH2E added.
 429
 430 * GASP has now been removed.
 431
 432 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 433   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 434
 435 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 436
 437 Changes in 2.13:
 438
 439 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 440   and FR500 included.
 441
 442 * Support for DLX processor added.
 443
 444 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 445   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 446
 447 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 448   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 449   the currently specified base.
 450
 451 Changes in 2.12:
 452
 453 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 454
 455 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 456
 457 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 458   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 459   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 460   compatibility.
 461
 462 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 463   the ARM assembler.
 464
 465 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 466   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 467
 468 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 469   but still works for compatability.
 470
 471 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 472   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 473   -n will turn on the warning.
 474
 475 Changes in 2.11:
 476
 477 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 478
 479 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 480
 481 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 482
 483 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 484
 485 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 486
 487 * Support for IA-64.
 488
 489 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 490
 491 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 492
 493 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 494
 495 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 496   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 497   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 498
 499 Changes in 2.10:
 500
 501 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 502   operand when altering the flags field.
 503
 504 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 505
 506 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 507
 508 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 509
 510 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 511
 512 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 513
 514 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 515
 516 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 517
 518 * picoJava architecture support added.
 519
 520 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 521
 522 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 523   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 524
 525 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 526
 527 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 528
 529 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 530
 531 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 532   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 533   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 534   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 535
 536 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 537
 538 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 539
 540 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 541
 542 * i960 ELF support added.
 543
 544 * ARM ELF support added.
 545
 546 Changes in 2.9:
 547
 548 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 549
 550 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 551   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 552
 553 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 554
 555 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 556   listing.
 557
 558 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 559
 560 Changes in 2.8:
 561
 562 * BeOS support added.
 563
 564 * MIPS16 support added.
 565
 566 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 567
 568 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 569
 570 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 571   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 572
 573 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 574   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 575   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 576   all.
 577
 578 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 579
 580 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 581   conditionals in listings.
 582
 583 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 584   the symbol is already defined.
 585
 586 Changes in 2.7:
 587
 588 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 589   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 590   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 591   added.
 592
 593 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 594
 595 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 596
 597 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 598
 599 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 600
 601 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 602
 603 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 604   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 605   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 606   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 607
 608 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 609
 610 Changes in 2.6:
 611
 612 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 613
 614 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 615   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 616   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 617
 618 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 619
 620 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 621
 622 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 623
 624 Changes in 2.4:
 625
 626 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 627
 628 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 629
 630 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 631   debugging support.
 632
 633 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 634
 635 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 636   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 637   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 638   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 639
 640 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 641
 642 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 643   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 644
 645 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 646
 647 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 648   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 649
 650 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 651   Paul Kranenburg.
 652
 653 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 654   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 655
 656 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 657
 658 Changes in 2.3:
 659
 660 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 661
 662 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 663
 664 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 665   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 666   again too.
 667
 668 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 669   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 670   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 671   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 672   in the "dist" directory.
 673
 674 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 675   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 676   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 677
 678 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 679   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 680   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 681   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 682
 683 * Irix 5 support.
 684
 685 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 686   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 687
 688 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 689   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 690   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 691   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 692
 693 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 694   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 695   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 696   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 697
 698 Changes in 2.2:
 699
 700 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 701
 702 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 703   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 704   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 705   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 706   reliable.
 707
 708 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 709   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 710   messages about "internal errors".
 711
 712 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 713   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 714
 715 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 716   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 717   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 718   known.
 719
 720 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 721   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 722   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 723   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 724   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 725   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 726   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 727
 728 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 729   support is in progress.
 730
 731 Changes in 2.1:
 732
 733 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 734   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 735
 736 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 737   with gcc now.
 738
 739 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 740   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 741
 742 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 743   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 744   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 745
 746 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 747
 748 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 749
 750 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 751
 752 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 753
 754 Changes in 2.0:
 755
 756 * Mostly bug fixes.
 757
 758 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 759
 760 Changes in 1.94:
 761
 762 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 763   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 764   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 765   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 766   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 767   fully merged yet.)
 768
 769 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 770   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 771
 772 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 773   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 774
 775 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 776   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 777   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 778   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 779   coming.
 780
 781 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 782
 783 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 784   Youngdale.
 785
 786 Changes in 1.93.01:
 787
 788 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 789
 790 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 791
 792 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 793   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 794   can be distinguished from the register.
 795
 796 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 797   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 798
 799 \f
 800 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 801
 802 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 803 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 804 notice and this notice are preserved.
 805
 806 Local variables:
 807 fill-column: 79
 808 End: