gas/NEWS

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