gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
   4   instructions.
   5
   6 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
   7   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
   8   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
   9   option is not used to "no".
  10
  11 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
  12   processors.
  13
  14 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
  15   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
  16
  17 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
  18   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
  19   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
  20   encoding.
  21
  22 Changes in 2.32:
  23
  24 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
  25   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
  26
  27 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
  28   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
  29   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  30   to "no".
  31
  32 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
  33
  34 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
  35
  36 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
  37
  38 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
  39
  40 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
  41   ASE.
  42
  43 Changes in 2.31:
  44
  45 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
  46   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
  47   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
  48
  49 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
  50
  51 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
  52
  53 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
  54
  55 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
  56   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
  57   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
  58   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
  59   to "no".
  60
  61 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
  62
  63 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
  64   shorter instruction encoding.
  65
  66 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
  67   x86 targets.
  68
  69 Changes in 2.30:
  70
  71 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
  72
  73 Changes in 2.29:
  74
  75 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
  76
  77 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
  78
  79 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
  80   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
  81   that the registers are invalid.
  82
  83 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
  84
  85 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
  86   added to the ARM port.
  87
  88 Changes in 2.28:
  89
  90 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  91
  92 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
  93
  94 Changes in 2.27:
  95
  96 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
  97
  98 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
  99   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 100
 101 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 102   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 103   port.
 104
 105 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 106   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 107   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 108
 109 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 110   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 111   default.  Default to no.
 112
 113 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 114   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 115
 116 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 117   based targets.
 118
 119 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 120   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 121   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 122
 123 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 124   whether to generate relax relocations.
 125
 126 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 127   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 128
 129 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 130
 131 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 132   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 133
 134 Changes in 2.26:
 135
 136 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 137   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 138
 139 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 140   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 141
 142 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 143   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 144   level languages.
 145
 146 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 147   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 148
 149 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 150   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 151   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 152
 153 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 154   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 155   been added to the ARM port.
 156
 157 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 158   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 159   targets.
 160
 161 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 162
 163 Changes in 2.25:
 164
 165 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 166
 167 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 168
 169 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 170   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 171
 172 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 173
 174 Changes in 2.24:
 175
 176 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 177
 178 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 179   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 180
 181 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 182
 183 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 184
 185 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 186
 187 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 188
 189 Changes in 2.23:
 190
 191 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 192
 193 * Add support for S12X processor.
 194
 195 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 196
 197 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 198
 199 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 200   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 201
 202 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 203
 204 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 205
 206 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 207
 208 Changes in 2.22:
 209
 210 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 211
 212 Changes in 2.21:
 213
 214 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 215
 216 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 217
 218 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 219   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 220   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 221   2.20.1.
 222
 223 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 224
 225 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 226   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 227   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 228   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 229
 230 Changes in 2.20:
 231
 232 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 233
 234 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 235   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 236   process.
 237
 238 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 239   in binary rather than text.
 240
 241 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 242
 243 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 244   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 245
 246 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 247
 248 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 249   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 250   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 251   the value.
 252
 253 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 254
 255 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 256
 257 Changes in 2.19:
 258
 259 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 260   tables without runtime relocation.
 261
 262 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 263   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 264
 265 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 266   targets.
 267
 268 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 269   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 270   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 271   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 272
 273 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 274   instructions with VEX prefix.
 275
 276 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 277
 278 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 279   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 280   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 281
 282 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 283   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 284
 285 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 286
 287 Changes in 2.18:
 288
 289 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 290
 291 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 292
 293 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 294   relocations.
 295
 296 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 297
 298 * Add support for Score target.
 299
 300 Changes in 2.17:
 301
 302 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 303
 304 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 305
 306 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 307
 308 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 309   switches can be read from <file>.
 310
 311 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 312   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 313   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 314
 315 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 316   documentation for how this works.
 317
 318 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 319   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 320   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 321
 322 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 323   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 324   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 325   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 326   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 327
 328 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 329   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 330   assembler.
 331
 332 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 333
 334 Changes in 2.16:
 335
 336 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 337
 338 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 339
 340 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 341   targets.
 342
 343 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 344   mode.
 345
 346 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 347
 348 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 349
 350 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 351   preferred debug format.
 352
 353 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 354
 355 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 356
 357 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 358   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 359
 360 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 361
 362 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 363   instrucitons.
 364
 365 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 366
 367 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 368   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 369
 370 Changes in 2.15:
 371
 372 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 373   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 374
 375 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 376
 377 * Added support for ARM V6.
 378
 379 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 380
 381 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 382
 383 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 384   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 385
 386 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 387   definitions created by ".req".
 388
 389 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 390
 391 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 392   information with GNU extensions.
 393
 394 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 395
 396 * Added support for v850e1.
 397
 398 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 399   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 400   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 401   switch disables the optimization.
 402
 403 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 404   existing -non_shared option.
 405
 406 Changes in 2.14:
 407
 408 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 409
 410 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 411
 412 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 413
 414 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 415   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 416
 417 * Support for SH2E added.
 418
 419 * GASP has now been removed.
 420
 421 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 422   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 423
 424 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 425
 426 Changes in 2.13:
 427
 428 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 429   and FR500 included.
 430
 431 * Support for DLX processor added.
 432
 433 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 434   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 435
 436 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 437   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 438   the currently specified base.
 439
 440 Changes in 2.12:
 441
 442 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 443
 444 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 445
 446 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 447   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 448   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 449   compatibility.
 450
 451 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 452   the ARM assembler.
 453
 454 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 455   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 456
 457 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 458   but still works for compatability.
 459
 460 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 461   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 462   -n will turn on the warning.
 463
 464 Changes in 2.11:
 465
 466 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 467
 468 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 469
 470 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 471
 472 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 473
 474 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 475
 476 * Support for IA-64.
 477
 478 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 479
 480 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 481
 482 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 483
 484 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 485   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 486   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 487
 488 Changes in 2.10:
 489
 490 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 491   operand when altering the flags field.
 492
 493 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 494
 495 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 496
 497 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 498
 499 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 500
 501 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 502
 503 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 504
 505 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 506
 507 * picoJava architecture support added.
 508
 509 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 510
 511 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 512   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 513
 514 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 515
 516 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 517
 518 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 519
 520 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 521   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 522   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 523   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 524
 525 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 526
 527 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 528
 529 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 530
 531 * i960 ELF support added.
 532
 533 * ARM ELF support added.
 534
 535 Changes in 2.9:
 536
 537 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 538
 539 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 540   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 541
 542 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 543
 544 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 545   listing.
 546
 547 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 548
 549 Changes in 2.8:
 550
 551 * BeOS support added.
 552
 553 * MIPS16 support added.
 554
 555 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 556
 557 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 558
 559 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 560   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 561
 562 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 563   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 564   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 565   all.
 566
 567 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 568
 569 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 570   conditionals in listings.
 571
 572 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 573   the symbol is already defined.
 574
 575 Changes in 2.7:
 576
 577 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 578   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 579   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 580   added.
 581
 582 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 583
 584 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 585
 586 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 587
 588 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 589
 590 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 591
 592 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 593   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 594   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 595   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 596
 597 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 598
 599 Changes in 2.6:
 600
 601 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 602
 603 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 604   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 605   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 606
 607 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 608
 609 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 610
 611 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 612
 613 Changes in 2.4:
 614
 615 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 616
 617 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 618
 619 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 620   debugging support.
 621
 622 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 623
 624 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 625   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 626   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 627   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 628
 629 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 630
 631 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 632   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 633
 634 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 635
 636 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 637   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 638
 639 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 640   Paul Kranenburg.
 641
 642 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 643   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 644
 645 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 646
 647 Changes in 2.3:
 648
 649 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 650
 651 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 652
 653 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 654   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 655   again too.
 656
 657 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 658   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 659   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 660   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 661   in the "dist" directory.
 662
 663 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 664   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 665   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 666
 667 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 668   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 669   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 670   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 671
 672 * Irix 5 support.
 673
 674 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 675   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 676
 677 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 678   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 679   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 680   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 681
 682 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 683   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 684   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 685   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 686
 687 Changes in 2.2:
 688
 689 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 690
 691 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 692   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 693   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 694   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 695   reliable.
 696
 697 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 698   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 699   messages about "internal errors".
 700
 701 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 702   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 703
 704 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 705   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 706   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 707   known.
 708
 709 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 710   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 711   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 712   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 713   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 714   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 715   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 716
 717 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 718   support is in progress.
 719
 720 Changes in 2.1:
 721
 722 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 723   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 724
 725 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 726   with gcc now.
 727
 728 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 729   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 730
 731 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 732   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 733   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 734
 735 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 736
 737 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 738
 739 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 740
 741 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 742
 743 Changes in 2.0:
 744
 745 * Mostly bug fixes.
 746
 747 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 748
 749 Changes in 1.94:
 750
 751 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 752   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 753   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 754   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 755   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 756   fully merged yet.)
 757
 758 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 759   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 760
 761 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 762   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 763
 764 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 765   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 766   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 767   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 768   coming.
 769
 770 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 771
 772 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 773   Youngdale.
 774
 775 Changes in 1.93.01:
 776
 777 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 778
 779 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 780
 781 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 782   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 783   can be distinguished from the register.
 784
 785 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 786   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 787
 788 \f
 789 Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 790
 791 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 792 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 793 notice and this notice are preserved.
 794
 795 Local variables:
 796 fill-column: 79
 797 End: