gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for Intel AVX512_FP16 instructions.
   4
   5 Changes in 2.37:
   6
   7 * arm-symbianelf support removed.
   8
   9 * Add support for Realm Management Extension (RME) for AArch64.
  10
  11 Changes in 2.36:
  12
  13 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
  14
  15 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
  16
  17 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
  18
  19 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  20
  21 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  22   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  23
  24 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE, Cortex-A78C and Cortex-X1 for
  25   AArch64 and ARM.
  26   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  27
  28 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  29   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension)and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer
  30   Extension) system registers for AArch64.
  31
  32 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  33
  34 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  35   AArch64.
  36
  37 * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
  38
  39 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  40   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  41
  42 * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for -march in
  43   AArch64.
  44
  45 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  46
  47 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  48
  49 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  50   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  51   generation, if that is active.
  52
  53 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  54   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  55
  56 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  57
  58 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  59
  60 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  61
  62 * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN flag, which can be applied to
  63   sections using the 'R' flag in the .section directive.
  64   SHF_GNU_RETAIN specifies that the section should not be garbage
  65   collected by the linker.  It requires the GNU or FreeBSD ELF OSABIs.
  66
  67 Changes in 2.35:
  68
  69 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
  70
  71 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
  72   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
  73
  74 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
  75
  76 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
  77   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
  78   CVE-2020-0551.
  79
  80 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
  81   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
  82   version 5 .debug_line sections.
  83
  84 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
  85
  86 Changes in 2.34:
  87
  88 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
  89   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
  90   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
  91   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
  92
  93 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
  94
  95 * Add support for z80-elf target.
  96
  97 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
  98   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
  99   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
 100
 101 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
 102
 103 Changes in 2.33:
 104
 105 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
 106   instructions.
 107
 108 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
 109   instructions.
 110
 111 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
 112   instructions.
 113
 114 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
 115   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
 116   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 117   option is not used to "no".
 118
 119 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 120   processors.
 121
 122 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 123   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 124
 125 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 126   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 127   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 128   encoding.
 129
 130 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 131   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 132
 133 Changes in 2.32:
 134
 135 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 136   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 137
 138 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 139   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 140   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 141   to "no".
 142
 143 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 144
 145 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 146
 147 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 148
 149 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 150
 151 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 152   ASE.
 153
 154 Changes in 2.31:
 155
 156 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 157   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 158   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 159
 160 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 161
 162 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 163
 164 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 165
 166 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 167   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 168   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 169   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 170   to "no".
 171
 172 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 173
 174 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 175   shorter instruction encoding.
 176
 177 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 178   x86 targets.
 179
 180 Changes in 2.30:
 181
 182 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 183
 184 Changes in 2.29:
 185
 186 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 187
 188 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 189
 190 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 191   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 192   that the registers are invalid.
 193
 194 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 195
 196 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 197   added to the ARM port.
 198
 199 Changes in 2.28:
 200
 201 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 202
 203 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 204
 205 Changes in 2.27:
 206
 207 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 208
 209 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 210   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 211
 212 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 213   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 214   port.
 215
 216 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 217   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 218   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 219
 220 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 221   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 222   default.  Default to no.
 223
 224 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 225   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 226
 227 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 228   based targets.
 229
 230 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 231   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 232   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 233
 234 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 235   whether to generate relax relocations.
 236
 237 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 238   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 239
 240 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 241
 242 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 243   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 244
 245 Changes in 2.26:
 246
 247 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 248   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 249
 250 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 251   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 252
 253 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 254   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 255   level languages.
 256
 257 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 258   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 259
 260 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 261   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 262   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 263
 264 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 265   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 266   been added to the ARM port.
 267
 268 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 269   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 270   targets.
 271
 272 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 273
 274 Changes in 2.25:
 275
 276 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 277
 278 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 279
 280 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 281   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 282
 283 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 284
 285 Changes in 2.24:
 286
 287 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 288
 289 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 290   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 291
 292 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 293
 294 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 295
 296 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 297
 298 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 299
 300 Changes in 2.23:
 301
 302 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 303
 304 * Add support for S12X processor.
 305
 306 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 307
 308 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 309
 310 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 311   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 312
 313 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 314
 315 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 316
 317 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 318
 319 Changes in 2.22:
 320
 321 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 322
 323 Changes in 2.21:
 324
 325 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 326
 327 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 328
 329 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 330   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 331   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 332   2.20.1.
 333
 334 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 335
 336 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 337   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 338   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 339   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 340
 341 Changes in 2.20:
 342
 343 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 344
 345 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 346   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 347   process.
 348
 349 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 350   in binary rather than text.
 351
 352 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 353
 354 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 355   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 356
 357 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 358
 359 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 360   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 361   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 362   the value.
 363
 364 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 365
 366 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 367
 368 Changes in 2.19:
 369
 370 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 371   tables without runtime relocation.
 372
 373 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 374   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 375
 376 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 377   targets.
 378
 379 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 380   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 381   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 382   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 383
 384 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 385   instructions with VEX prefix.
 386
 387 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 388
 389 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 390   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 391   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 392
 393 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 394   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 395
 396 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 397
 398 Changes in 2.18:
 399
 400 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 401
 402 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 403
 404 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 405   relocations.
 406
 407 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 408
 409 * Add support for Score target.
 410
 411 Changes in 2.17:
 412
 413 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 414
 415 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 416
 417 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 418
 419 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 420   switches can be read from <file>.
 421
 422 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 423   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 424   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 425
 426 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 427   documentation for how this works.
 428
 429 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 430   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 431   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 432
 433 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 434   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 435   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 436   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 437   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 438
 439 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 440   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 441   assembler.
 442
 443 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 444
 445 Changes in 2.16:
 446
 447 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 448
 449 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 450
 451 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 452   targets.
 453
 454 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 455   mode.
 456
 457 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 458
 459 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 460
 461 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 462   preferred debug format.
 463
 464 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 465
 466 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 467
 468 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 469   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 470
 471 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 472
 473 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 474   instrucitons.
 475
 476 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 477
 478 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 479   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 480
 481 Changes in 2.15:
 482
 483 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 484   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 485
 486 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 487
 488 * Added support for ARM V6.
 489
 490 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 491
 492 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 493
 494 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 495   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 496
 497 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 498   definitions created by ".req".
 499
 500 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 501
 502 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 503   information with GNU extensions.
 504
 505 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 506
 507 * Added support for v850e1.
 508
 509 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 510   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 511   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 512   switch disables the optimization.
 513
 514 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 515   existing -non_shared option.
 516
 517 Changes in 2.14:
 518
 519 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 520
 521 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 522
 523 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 524
 525 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 526   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 527
 528 * Support for SH2E added.
 529
 530 * GASP has now been removed.
 531
 532 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 533   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 534
 535 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 536
 537 Changes in 2.13:
 538
 539 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 540   and FR500 included.
 541
 542 * Support for DLX processor added.
 543
 544 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 545   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 546
 547 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 548   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 549   the currently specified base.
 550
 551 Changes in 2.12:
 552
 553 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 554
 555 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 556
 557 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 558   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 559   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 560   compatibility.
 561
 562 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 563   the ARM assembler.
 564
 565 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 566   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 567
 568 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 569   but still works for compatability.
 570
 571 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 572   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 573   -n will turn on the warning.
 574
 575 Changes in 2.11:
 576
 577 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 578
 579 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 580
 581 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 582
 583 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 584
 585 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 586
 587 * Support for IA-64.
 588
 589 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 590
 591 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 592
 593 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 594
 595 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 596   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 597   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 598
 599 Changes in 2.10:
 600
 601 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 602   operand when altering the flags field.
 603
 604 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 605
 606 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 607
 608 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 609
 610 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 611
 612 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 613
 614 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 615
 616 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 617
 618 * picoJava architecture support added.
 619
 620 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 621
 622 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 623   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 624
 625 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 626
 627 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 628
 629 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 630
 631 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 632   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 633   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 634   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 635
 636 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 637
 638 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 639
 640 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 641
 642 * i960 ELF support added.
 643
 644 * ARM ELF support added.
 645
 646 Changes in 2.9:
 647
 648 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 649
 650 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 651   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 652
 653 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 654
 655 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 656   listing.
 657
 658 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 659
 660 Changes in 2.8:
 661
 662 * BeOS support added.
 663
 664 * MIPS16 support added.
 665
 666 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 667
 668 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 669
 670 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 671   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 672
 673 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 674   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 675   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 676   all.
 677
 678 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 679
 680 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 681   conditionals in listings.
 682
 683 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 684   the symbol is already defined.
 685
 686 Changes in 2.7:
 687
 688 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 689   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 690   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 691   added.
 692
 693 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 694
 695 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 696
 697 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 698
 699 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 700
 701 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 702
 703 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 704   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 705   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 706   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 707
 708 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 709
 710 Changes in 2.6:
 711
 712 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 713
 714 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 715   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 716   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 717
 718 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 719
 720 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 721
 722 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 723
 724 Changes in 2.4:
 725
 726 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 727
 728 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 729
 730 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 731   debugging support.
 732
 733 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 734
 735 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 736   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 737   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 738   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 739
 740 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 741
 742 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 743   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 744
 745 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 746
 747 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 748   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 749
 750 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 751   Paul Kranenburg.
 752
 753 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 754   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 755
 756 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 757
 758 Changes in 2.3:
 759
 760 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 761
 762 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 763
 764 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 765   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 766   again too.
 767
 768 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 769   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 770   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 771   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 772   in the "dist" directory.
 773
 774 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 775   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 776   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 777
 778 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 779   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 780   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 781   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 782
 783 * Irix 5 support.
 784
 785 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 786   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 787
 788 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 789   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 790   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 791   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 792
 793 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 794   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 795   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 796   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 797
 798 Changes in 2.2:
 799
 800 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 801
 802 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 803   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 804   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 805   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 806   reliable.
 807
 808 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 809   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 810   messages about "internal errors".
 811
 812 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 813   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 814
 815 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 816   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 817   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 818   known.
 819
 820 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 821   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 822   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 823   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 824   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 825   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 826   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 827
 828 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 829   support is in progress.
 830
 831 Changes in 2.1:
 832
 833 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 834   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 835
 836 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 837   with gcc now.
 838
 839 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 840   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 841
 842 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 843   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 844   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 845
 846 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 847
 848 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 849
 850 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 851
 852 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 853
 854 Changes in 2.0:
 855
 856 * Mostly bug fixes.
 857
 858 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 859
 860 Changes in 1.94:
 861
 862 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 863   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 864   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 865   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 866   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 867   fully merged yet.)
 868
 869 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 870   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 871
 872 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 873   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 874
 875 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 876   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 877   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 878   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 879   coming.
 880
 881 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 882
 883 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 884   Youngdale.
 885
 886 Changes in 1.93.01:
 887
 888 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 889
 890 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 891
 892 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 893   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 894   can be distinguished from the register.
 895
 896 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 897   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 898
 899 \f
 900 Copyright (C) 2012-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 901
 902 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 903 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 904 notice and this notice are preserved.
 905
 906 Local variables:
 907 fill-column: 79
 908 End: