gas/NEWS

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