gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
   4
   5 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
   6   switches can be read from <file>.
   7
   8 * The SH target supports a new command line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
   9   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
  10   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
  11
  12 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
  13   documentation for how this works.
  14
  15 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
  16   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
  17   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
  18
  19 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
  20   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
  21   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
  22   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
  23   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
  24
  25 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
  26   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
  27   assembler.
  28
  29 * New command line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
  30
  31 Changes in 2.16:
  32
  33 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
  34
  35 * New command line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
  36
  37 * New command line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
  38   targets.
  39
  40 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
  41   mode.
  42
  43 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
  44
  45 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
  46
  47 * Add a -g command line option to generate debug information in the target's
  48   preferred debug format.
  49
  50 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
  51
  52 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
  53
  54 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
  55   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
  56
  57 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
  58
  59 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
  60   instrucitons.
  61
  62 * New command line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
  63
  64 * New command line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
  65   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
  66
  67 Changes in 2.15:
  68
  69 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
  70   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
  71
  72 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
  73
  74 * Added support for ARM V6.
  75
  76 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
  77
  78 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
  79
  80 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
  81   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
  82
  83 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
  84   definitions created by ".req".
  85
  86 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
  87
  88 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
  89   information with GNU extensions.
  90
  91 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
  92
  93 * Added support for v850e1.
  94
  95 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
  96   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
  97   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
  98   switch disables the optimization.
  99
 100 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 101   existing -non_shared option.
 102
 103 Changes in 2.14:
 104
 105 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 106
 107 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 108
 109 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 110
 111 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 112   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 113
 114 * Support for SH2E added.
 115
 116 * GASP has now been removed.
 117
 118 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 119   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 120
 121 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 122
 123 Changes in 2.13:
 124
 125 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 126   and FR500 included.
 127
 128 * Support for DLX processor added.
 129
 130 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 131   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 132
 133 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 134   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 135   the currently specified base.
 136
 137 Changes in 2.12:
 138
 139 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 140
 141 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 142
 143 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 144   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 145   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 146   compatibility.
 147
 148 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 149   the ARM assembler.
 150
 151 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 152   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 153
 154 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 155   but still works for compatability.
 156
 157 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 158   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command line option
 159   -n will turn on the warning.
 160
 161 Changes in 2.11:
 162
 163 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 164
 165 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 166
 167 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 168
 169 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 170
 171 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 172
 173 * Support for IA-64.
 174
 175 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 176
 177 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 178
 179 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 180
 181 * x86 gas -q command line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 182   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 183   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 184
 185 Changes in 2.10:
 186
 187 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 188   operand when altering the flags field.
 189
 190 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 191
 192 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 193
 194 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 195
 196 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 197
 198 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 199
 200 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 201
 202 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 203
 204 * picoJava architecture support added.
 205
 206 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 207
 208 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 209   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 210
 211 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 212
 213 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 214
 215 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 216
 217 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 218   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 219   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 220   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 221
 222 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 223
 224 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 225
 226 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 227
 228 * i960 ELF support added.
 229
 230 * ARM ELF support added.
 231
 232 Changes in 2.9:
 233
 234 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 235
 236 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 237   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 238
 239 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 240
 241 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 242   listing.
 243
 244 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 245
 246 Changes in 2.8:
 247
 248 * BeOS support added.
 249
 250 * MIPS16 support added.
 251
 252 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 253
 254 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 255
 256 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 257   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 258
 259 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 260   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 261   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 262   all.
 263
 264 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 265
 266 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 267   conditionals in listings.
 268
 269 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 270   the symbol is already defined.
 271
 272 Changes in 2.7:
 273
 274 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 275   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 276   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 277   added.
 278
 279 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 280
 281 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 282
 283 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 284
 285 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 286
 287 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 288
 289 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 290   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 291   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 292   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 293
 294 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 295
 296 Changes in 2.6:
 297
 298 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 299
 300 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 301   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 302   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 303
 304 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 305
 306 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 307
 308 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 309
 310 Changes in 2.4:
 311
 312 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 313
 314 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 315
 316 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 317   debugging support.
 318
 319 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 320
 321 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 322   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 323   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 324   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 325
 326 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 327
 328 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 329   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 330
 331 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 332
 333 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 334   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 335
 336 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 337   Paul Kranenburg.
 338
 339 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 340   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 341
 342 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 343
 344 Changes in 2.3:
 345
 346 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 347
 348 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 349
 350 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 351   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 352   again too.
 353
 354 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 355   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 356   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 357   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 358   in the "dist" directory.
 359
 360 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 361   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 362   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 363
 364 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 365   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 366   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 367   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 368
 369 * Irix 5 support.
 370
 371 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 372   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 373
 374 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 375   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 376   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 377   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 378
 379 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 380   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 381   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 382   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 383
 384 Changes in 2.2:
 385
 386 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 387
 388 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 389   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 390   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 391   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 392   reliable.
 393
 394 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 395   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 396   messages about "internal errors".
 397
 398 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 399   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 400
 401 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 402   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 403   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 404   known.
 405
 406 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 407   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 408   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 409   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 410   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 411   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 412   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 413
 414 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 415   support is in progress.
 416
 417 Changes in 2.1:
 418
 419 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 420   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 421
 422 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 423   with gcc now.
 424
 425 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 426   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 427
 428 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 429   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 430   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 431
 432 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 433
 434 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 435
 436 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 437
 438 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 439
 440 Changes in 2.0:
 441
 442 * Mostly bug fixes.
 443
 444 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 445
 446 Changes in 1.94:
 447
 448 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 449   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 450   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 451   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 452   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 453   fully merged yet.)
 454
 455 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 456   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 457
 458 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 459   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 460
 461 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 462   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 463   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 464   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 465   coming.
 466
 467 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 468
 469 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 470   Youngdale.
 471
 472 Changes in 1.93.01:
 473
 474 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 475
 476 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 477
 478 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 479   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 480   can be distinguished from the register.
 481
 482 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 483   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 484
 485 \f
 486 Local variables:
 487 fill-column: 79
 488 End: