gas/NEWS

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