gas/NEWS

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