gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
   4
   5 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
   6
   7 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
   8
   9 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  10
  11 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  12   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  13
  14 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE and Cortex-X1 for AArch64 and ARM.
  15   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  16
  17 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  18   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension), CSRE (Call Stack Recorder
  19   Extension) and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer Extension) system registers for
  20   AArch64.
  21
  22 * Add support for Armv8-R AArch64.
  23
  24 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  25
  26 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  27
  28 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  29   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  30   generation, if that is active.
  31
  32 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  33   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  34
  35 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  36
  37 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  38
  39 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  40
  41 Changes in 2.35:
  42
  43 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
  44
  45 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
  46   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
  47
  48 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
  49
  50 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  51   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  52   CVE-2020-0551.
  53
  54 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  55   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  56   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  57
  58 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  59
  60 Changes in 2.34:
  61
  62 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  63   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  64   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  65   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  66
  67 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  68
  69 * Add support for z80-elf target.
  70
  71 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
  72   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
  73   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
  74
  75 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
  76
  77 Changes in 2.33:
  78
  79 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
  80   instructions.
  81
  82 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
  83   instructions.
  84
  85 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
  86   instructions.
  87
  88 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
  89   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
  90   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
  91   option is not used to "no".
  92
  93 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
  94   processors.
  95
  96 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
  97   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
  98
  99 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 100   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 101   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 102   encoding.
 103
 104 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 105   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 106
 107 Changes in 2.32:
 108
 109 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 110   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 111
 112 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 113   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 114   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 115   to "no".
 116
 117 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 118
 119 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 120
 121 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 122
 123 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 124
 125 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 126   ASE.
 127
 128 Changes in 2.31:
 129
 130 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 131   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 132   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 133
 134 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 135
 136 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 137
 138 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 139
 140 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 141   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 142   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 143   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 144   to "no".
 145
 146 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 147
 148 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 149   shorter instruction encoding.
 150
 151 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 152   x86 targets.
 153
 154 Changes in 2.30:
 155
 156 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 157
 158 Changes in 2.29:
 159
 160 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 161
 162 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 163
 164 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 165   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 166   that the registers are invalid.
 167
 168 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 169
 170 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 171   added to the ARM port.
 172
 173 Changes in 2.28:
 174
 175 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 176
 177 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 178
 179 Changes in 2.27:
 180
 181 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 182
 183 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 184   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 185
 186 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 187   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 188   port.
 189
 190 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 191   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 192   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 193
 194 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 195   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 196   default.  Default to no.
 197
 198 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 199   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 200
 201 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 202   based targets.
 203
 204 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 205   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 206   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 207
 208 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 209   whether to generate relax relocations.
 210
 211 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 212   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 213
 214 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 215
 216 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 217   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 218
 219 Changes in 2.26:
 220
 221 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 222   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 223
 224 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 225   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 226
 227 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 228   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 229   level languages.
 230
 231 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 232   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 233
 234 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 235   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 236   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 237
 238 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 239   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 240   been added to the ARM port.
 241
 242 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 243   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 244   targets.
 245
 246 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 247
 248 Changes in 2.25:
 249
 250 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 251
 252 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 253
 254 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 255   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 256
 257 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 258
 259 Changes in 2.24:
 260
 261 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 262
 263 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 264   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 265
 266 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 267
 268 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 269
 270 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 271
 272 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 273
 274 Changes in 2.23:
 275
 276 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 277
 278 * Add support for S12X processor.
 279
 280 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 281
 282 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 283
 284 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 285   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 286
 287 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 288
 289 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 290
 291 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 292
 293 Changes in 2.22:
 294
 295 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 296
 297 Changes in 2.21:
 298
 299 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 300
 301 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 302
 303 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 304   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 305   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 306   2.20.1.
 307
 308 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 309
 310 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 311   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 312   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 313   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 314
 315 Changes in 2.20:
 316
 317 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 318
 319 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 320   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 321   process.
 322
 323 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 324   in binary rather than text.
 325
 326 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 327
 328 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 329   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 330
 331 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 332
 333 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 334   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 335   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 336   the value.
 337
 338 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 339
 340 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 341
 342 Changes in 2.19:
 343
 344 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 345   tables without runtime relocation.
 346
 347 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 348   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 349
 350 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 351   targets.
 352
 353 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 354   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 355   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 356   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 357
 358 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 359   instructions with VEX prefix.
 360
 361 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 362
 363 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 364   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 365   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 366
 367 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 368   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 369
 370 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 371
 372 Changes in 2.18:
 373
 374 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 375
 376 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 377
 378 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 379   relocations.
 380
 381 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 382
 383 * Add support for Score target.
 384
 385 Changes in 2.17:
 386
 387 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 388
 389 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 390
 391 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 392
 393 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 394   switches can be read from <file>.
 395
 396 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 397   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 398   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 399
 400 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 401   documentation for how this works.
 402
 403 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 404   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 405   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 406
 407 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 408   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 409   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 410   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 411   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 412
 413 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 414   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 415   assembler.
 416
 417 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 418
 419 Changes in 2.16:
 420
 421 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 422
 423 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 424
 425 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 426   targets.
 427
 428 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 429   mode.
 430
 431 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 432
 433 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 434
 435 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 436   preferred debug format.
 437
 438 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 439
 440 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 441
 442 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 443   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 444
 445 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 446
 447 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 448   instrucitons.
 449
 450 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 451
 452 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 453   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 454
 455 Changes in 2.15:
 456
 457 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 458   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 459
 460 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 461
 462 * Added support for ARM V6.
 463
 464 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 465
 466 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 467
 468 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 469   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 470
 471 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 472   definitions created by ".req".
 473
 474 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 475
 476 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 477   information with GNU extensions.
 478
 479 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 480
 481 * Added support for v850e1.
 482
 483 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 484   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 485   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 486   switch disables the optimization.
 487
 488 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 489   existing -non_shared option.
 490
 491 Changes in 2.14:
 492
 493 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 494
 495 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 496
 497 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 498
 499 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 500   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 501
 502 * Support for SH2E added.
 503
 504 * GASP has now been removed.
 505
 506 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 507   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 508
 509 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 510
 511 Changes in 2.13:
 512
 513 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 514   and FR500 included.
 515
 516 * Support for DLX processor added.
 517
 518 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 519   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 520
 521 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 522   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 523   the currently specified base.
 524
 525 Changes in 2.12:
 526
 527 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 528
 529 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 530
 531 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 532   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 533   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 534   compatibility.
 535
 536 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 537   the ARM assembler.
 538
 539 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 540   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 541
 542 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 543   but still works for compatability.
 544
 545 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 546   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 547   -n will turn on the warning.
 548
 549 Changes in 2.11:
 550
 551 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 552
 553 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 554
 555 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 556
 557 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 558
 559 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 560
 561 * Support for IA-64.
 562
 563 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 564
 565 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 566
 567 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 568
 569 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 570   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 571   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 572
 573 Changes in 2.10:
 574
 575 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 576   operand when altering the flags field.
 577
 578 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 579
 580 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 581
 582 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 583
 584 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 585
 586 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 587
 588 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 589
 590 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 591
 592 * picoJava architecture support added.
 593
 594 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 595
 596 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 597   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 598
 599 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 600
 601 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 602
 603 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 604
 605 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 606   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 607   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 608   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 609
 610 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 611
 612 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 613
 614 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 615
 616 * i960 ELF support added.
 617
 618 * ARM ELF support added.
 619
 620 Changes in 2.9:
 621
 622 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 623
 624 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 625   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 626
 627 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 628
 629 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 630   listing.
 631
 632 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 633
 634 Changes in 2.8:
 635
 636 * BeOS support added.
 637
 638 * MIPS16 support added.
 639
 640 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 641
 642 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 643
 644 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 645   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 646
 647 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 648   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 649   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 650   all.
 651
 652 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 653
 654 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 655   conditionals in listings.
 656
 657 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 658   the symbol is already defined.
 659
 660 Changes in 2.7:
 661
 662 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 663   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 664   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 665   added.
 666
 667 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 668
 669 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 670
 671 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 672
 673 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 674
 675 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 676
 677 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 678   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 679   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 680   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 681
 682 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 683
 684 Changes in 2.6:
 685
 686 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 687
 688 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 689   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 690   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 691
 692 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 693
 694 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 695
 696 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 697
 698 Changes in 2.4:
 699
 700 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 701
 702 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 703
 704 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 705   debugging support.
 706
 707 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 708
 709 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 710   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 711   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 712   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 713
 714 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 715
 716 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 717   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 718
 719 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 720
 721 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 722   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 723
 724 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 725   Paul Kranenburg.
 726
 727 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 728   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 729
 730 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 731
 732 Changes in 2.3:
 733
 734 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 735
 736 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 737
 738 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 739   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 740   again too.
 741
 742 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 743   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 744   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 745   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 746   in the "dist" directory.
 747
 748 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 749   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 750   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 751
 752 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 753   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 754   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 755   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 756
 757 * Irix 5 support.
 758
 759 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 760   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 761
 762 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 763   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 764   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 765   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 766
 767 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 768   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 769   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 770   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 771
 772 Changes in 2.2:
 773
 774 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 775
 776 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 777   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 778   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 779   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 780   reliable.
 781
 782 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 783   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 784   messages about "internal errors".
 785
 786 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 787   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 788
 789 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 790   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 791   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 792   known.
 793
 794 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 795   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 796   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 797   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 798   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 799   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 800   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 801
 802 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 803   support is in progress.
 804
 805 Changes in 2.1:
 806
 807 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 808   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 809
 810 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 811   with gcc now.
 812
 813 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 814   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 815
 816 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 817   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 818   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 819
 820 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 821
 822 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 823
 824 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 825
 826 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 827
 828 Changes in 2.0:
 829
 830 * Mostly bug fixes.
 831
 832 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 833
 834 Changes in 1.94:
 835
 836 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 837   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 838   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 839   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 840   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 841   fully merged yet.)
 842
 843 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 844   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 845
 846 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 847   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 848
 849 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 850   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 851   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 852   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 853   coming.
 854
 855 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 856
 857 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 858   Youngdale.
 859
 860 Changes in 1.93.01:
 861
 862 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 863
 864 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 865
 866 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 867   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 868   can be distinguished from the register.
 869
 870 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 871   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 872
 873 \f
 874 Copyright (C) 2012-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 875
 876 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 877 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 878 notice and this notice are preserved.
 879
 880 Local variables:
 881 fill-column: 79
 882 End: