gas/NEWS

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