gas/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for AArch64 system registers that were missing in previous
   4   releases.
   5
   6 * Add support for the LoongArch instruction set.
   7
   8 * Add a command-line option, -muse-unaligned-vector-move, for x86 target
   9   to encode aligned vector move as unaligned vector move.
  10
  11 * Add support for Cortex-R52+ for Arm.
  12
  13 * Add support for Cortex-A510, Cortex-A710, Cortex-X2 for AArch64.
  14
  15 * Add support for Cortex-A710 for Arm.
  16
  17 * Add support for Scalable Matrix Extension (SME) for AArch64.
  18
  19 * The --multibyte-handling=[allow|warn|warn-sym-only] option tells the
  20   assembler what to when it encoutners multibyte characters in the input.  The
  21   default is to allow them.  Setting the option to "warn" will generate a
  22   warning message whenever any multibyte character is encountered.  Using the
  23   option to "warn-sym-only" will make the assembler generate a warning whenever a
  24   symbol is defined containing multibyte characters.  (References to undefined
  25   symbols will not generate warnings).
  26
  27 * Outputs of .ds.x directive and .tfloat directive with hex input from
  28   x86 assembler have been reduced from 12 bytes to 10 bytes to match the
  29   output of .tfloat directive.
  30
  31 * Add support for 'armv8.8-a', 'armv9-a', 'armv9.1-a', 'armv9.2-a' and
  32   'armv9.3-a' for -march in AArch64 GAS.
  33
  34 * Add support for 'armv8.7-a', 'armv8.8-a', 'armv9-a', 'armv9.1-a',
  35   'armv9.2-a' and 'armv9.3-a' for -march in Arm GAS.
  36
  37 * Add support for Intel AVX512_FP16 instructions.
  38
  39 Changes in 2.37:
  40
  41 * arm-symbianelf support removed.
  42
  43 * Add support for Realm Management Extension (RME) for AArch64.
  44
  45 Changes in 2.36:
  46
  47 * Add support for Intel AVX VNNI instructions.
  48
  49 * Add support for Intel HRESET instruction.
  50
  51 * Add support for Intel UINTR instructions.
  52
  53 * Support non-absolute segment values for i386 lcall and ljmp.
  54
  55 * When setting the link order attribute of ELF sections, it is now possible to
  56   use a numeric section index instead of symbol name.
  57
  58 * Add support for Cortex-A78, Cortex-A78AE, Cortex-A78C and Cortex-X1 for
  59   AArch64 and ARM.
  60   Add support for Cortex-R82, Neoverse V1, and Neoverse N2 for ARM.
  61
  62 * Add support for ETMv4 (Embedded Trace Macrocell), ETE (Embedded Trace
  63   Extension), TRBE (Trace Buffer Extension)and BRBE (Branch Record Buffer
  64   Extension) system registers for AArch64.
  65
  66 * Add support for Armv8-R and Armv8.7-A AArch64.
  67
  68 * Add support for DSB memory nXS barrier, WFET and WFIT instruction for Armv8.7
  69   AArch64.
  70
  71 * Add support for +flagm feature for -march in Armv8.4 AArch64.
  72
  73 * Add support for +ls64 feature for -march in Armv8.7 AArch64. Add atomic
  74   64-byte load/store instructions for this feature.
  75
  76 * Add support for +pauth (Pointer Authentication) feature for -march in
  77   AArch64.
  78
  79 * Add support for Intel TDX instructions.
  80
  81 * Add support for Intel Key Locker instructions.
  82
  83 * Added a .nop directive to generate a single no-op instruction in a target
  84   neutral manner.  This instruction does have an effect on DWARF line number
  85   generation, if that is active.
  86
  87 * Removed --reduce-memory-overheads and --hash-size as gas now
  88   uses hash tables that can be expand and shrink automatically.
  89
  90 * Add {disp16} pseudo prefix to x86 assembler.
  91
  92 * Add support for Intel AMX instructions.
  93
  94 * Configure with --enable-x86-used-note by default for Linux/x86.
  95
  96 * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN flag, which can be applied to
  97   sections using the 'R' flag in the .section directive.
  98   SHF_GNU_RETAIN specifies that the section should not be garbage
  99   collected by the linker.  It requires the GNU or FreeBSD ELF OSABIs.
 100
 101 Changes in 2.35:
 102
 103 * X86 NaCl target support is removed.
 104
 105 * Extend .symver directive to update visibility of the original symbol
 106   and assign one original symbol to different versioned symbols.
 107
 108 * Add support for Intel SERIALIZE and TSXLDTRK instructions.
 109
 110 * Add -mlfence-after-load=, -mlfence-before-indirect-branch= and
 111   -mlfence-before-ret= options to x86 assembler to help mitigate
 112   CVE-2020-0551.
 113
 114 * Add --gdwarf-5 option to the assembler to generate DWARF 5 debug output
 115   (if such output is being generated).  Added the ability to generate
 116   version 5 .debug_line sections.
 117
 118 * Add -mbig-obj support to i386 MingW targets.
 119
 120 Changes in 2.34:
 121
 122 * Add -malign-branch-boundary=NUM, -malign-branch=TYPE[+TYPE...],
 123   -malign-branch-prefix-size=NUM and -mbranches-within-32B-boundaries
 124   options to x86 assembler to align branches within a fixed boundary
 125   with segment prefixes or NOPs.
 126
 127 * Add support for Zilog eZ80 and Zilog Z180 CPUs.
 128
 129 * Add support for z80-elf target.
 130
 131 * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80
 132   targets (just use right shift to 0, 8, 16, or 24 bits or AND operation
 133   with 0xff/0xffff mask): ld a, label >> 16 \ ld hl, label & 0xffff
 134
 135 * Add SDCC support for Z80 targets.
 136
 137 Changes in 2.33:
 138
 139 * Add support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2)
 140   instructions.
 141
 142 * Add support for the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME)
 143   instructions.
 144
 145 * Add support for the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE)
 146   instructions.
 147
 148 * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3
 149   LLSC Errata.  Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure
 150   time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure
 151   option is not used to "no".
 152
 153 * Add support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P
 154   processors.
 155
 156 * Add support for the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE,
 157   Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors.
 158
 159 * Add .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit
 160   floating point literals.  Add .float16_format directive and
 161   -mfp16-format=[ieee|alternative] option for Arm to control the format of the
 162   encoding.
 163
 164 * Add --gdwarf-cie-version command line flag.  This allows control over which
 165   version of DWARF CIE the assembler creates.
 166
 167 Changes in 2.32:
 168
 169 * Add -mvexwig=[0|1] option to x86 assembler to control encoding of
 170   VEX.W-ignored (WIG) VEX instructions.
 171
 172 * Add -mx86-used-note=[yes|no] option to generate (or not) x86 GNU property
 173   notes.  Add a --enable-x86-used-note configure time option to set the
 174   default behavior.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 175   to "no".
 176
 177 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions R2 (EXT2) instructions.
 178
 179 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson EXTensions (EXT) instructions.
 180
 181 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson Content Address Memory (CAM) ASE.
 182
 183 * Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
 184
 185 * Add support for the MIPS Loongson MultiMedia extensions Instructions (MMI)
 186   ASE.
 187
 188 Changes in 2.31:
 189
 190 * The ADR and ADRL pseudo-instructions supported by the ARM assembler
 191   now only set the bottom bit of the address of thumb function symbols
 192   if the -mthumb-interwork command line option is active.
 193
 194 * Add support for the MIPS Global INValidate (GINV) ASE.
 195
 196 * Add support for the MIPS Cyclic Redudancy Check (CRC) ASE.
 197
 198 * Add support for the Freescale S12Z architecture.
 199
 200 * Add --generate-missing-build-notes=[yes|no] option to create (or not) GNU
 201   Build Attribute notes if none are present in the input sources.  Add a
 202   --enable-generate-build-notes=[yes|no] configure time option to set the
 203   default behaviour.  Set the default if the configure option is not used
 204   to "no".
 205
 206 * Remove -mold-gcc command-line option for x86 targets.
 207
 208 * Add -O[2|s] command-line options to x86 assembler to enable alternate
 209   shorter instruction encoding.
 210
 211 * Add support for .nops directive.  It is currently supported only for
 212   x86 targets.
 213
 214 Changes in 2.30:
 215
 216 * Add support for loaction views in DWARF debug line information.
 217
 218 Changes in 2.29:
 219
 220 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND.
 221
 222 * Add support for the WebAssembly file format and wasm32 ELF conversion.
 223
 224 * PowerPC gas now checks that the correct register class is used in
 225   instructions.  For instance, "addi %f4,%cr3,%r31" warns three times
 226   that the registers are invalid.
 227
 228 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
 229
 230 * Support for the ARMv8-R architecture and Cortex-R52 processor has been
 231   added to the ARM port.
 232
 233 Changes in 2.28:
 234
 235 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
 236
 237 * Add support for the ARM Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors.
 238
 239 Changes in 2.27:
 240
 241 * Default to --enable-compressed-debug-sections=gas for Linux/x86 targets.
 242
 243 * Add --no-pad-sections to stop the assembler from padding the end of output
 244   sections up to their alignment boundary.
 245
 246 * Support for the ARMv8-M architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 247   for the ARMv8-M Security and DSP Extensions has also been added to the ARM
 248   port.
 249
 250 * ARC backend accepts .extInstruction, .extCondCode, .extAuxRegister, and
 251   .extCoreRegister pseudo-ops that allow an user to define custom
 252   instructions, conditional codes, auxiliary and core registers.
 253
 254 * Add a configure option --enable-elf-stt-common to decide whether ELF
 255   assembler should generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type by
 256   default.  Default to no.
 257
 258 * New command-line option --elf-stt-common= for ELF targets to control
 259   whether to generate common symbols with the STT_COMMON type.
 260
 261 * Add ability to set section flags and types via numeric values for ELF
 262   based targets.
 263
 264 * Add a configure option --enable-x86-relax-relocations to decide whether
 265   x86 assembler should generate relax relocations by default.  Default to
 266   yes, except for x86 Solaris targets older than Solaris 12.
 267
 268 * New command-line option -mrelax-relocations= for x86 target to control
 269   whether to generate relax relocations.
 270
 271 * New command-line option -mfence-as-lock-add=yes for x86 target to encode
 272   lfence, mfence and sfence as "lock addl $0x0, (%[re]sp)".
 273
 274 * Add assembly-time relaxation option for ARC cpus.
 275
 276 * Add --with-cpu=TYPE configure option for ARC gas.  This allows the default
 277   cpu type to be adjusted at configure time.
 278
 279 Changes in 2.26:
 280
 281 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,gas} to
 282   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
 283
 284 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.  Remove
 285   assembler support for Argonaut RISC architectures.
 286
 287 * Symbol and label names can now be enclosed in double quotes (") which allows
 288   them to contain characters that are not part of valid symbol names in high
 289   level languages.
 290
 291 * Added the correctly spelled -march=armv6kz, for ARMv6KZ support.  The
 292   previous spelling, -march=armv6zk, is still accepted.
 293
 294 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the Aarch64 port.
 295   Support for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD, LOR and PAN architecture
 296   extensions has also been added to the Aarch64 port.
 297
 298 * Support for the ARMv8.1 architecture has been added to the ARM port.  Support
 299   for the individual ARMv8.1 Adv.SIMD and PAN architecture extensions has also
 300   been added to the ARM port.
 301
 302 * Extend --compress-debug-sections option to support
 303   --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi] for ELF
 304   targets.
 305
 306 * --compress-debug-sections is turned on for Linux/x86 by default.
 307
 308 Changes in 2.25:
 309
 310 * Add support for the AVR Tiny microcontrollers.
 311
 312 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 313
 314 * Enhanced the ARM port to accept the assembler output from the CodeComposer
 315   Studio tool.  Support is enabled via the new command-line option -mccs.
 316
 317 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 318
 319 Changes in 2.24:
 320
 321 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 322
 323 * Add -gdwarf-sections command-line option to enable per-code-section
 324   generation of DWARF .debug_line sections.
 325
 326 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 327
 328 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 329
 330 * Add support for the v850e3v5.
 331
 332 * Remove assembler support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 333
 334 Changes in 2.23:
 335
 336 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 337
 338 * Add support for S12X processor.
 339
 340 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 341
 342 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 343
 344 * Add support for .bundle_align_mode, .bundle_lock, and .bundle_unlock
 345   directives.  These are currently available only for x86 and ARM targets.
 346
 347 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 348
 349 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 350
 351 * For x86, allow 'rep bsf', 'rep bsr', and 'rep ret' syntax.
 352
 353 Changes in 2.22:
 354
 355 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 356
 357 Changes in 2.21:
 358
 359 * Gas no longer requires doubling of ampersands in macros.
 360
 361 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 362
 363 * GAS now understands an extended syntax in the .section directive flags
 364   for COFF targets that allows the section's alignment to be specified.  This
 365   feature has also been backported to the 2.20 release series, starting with
 366   2.20.1.
 367
 368 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 369
 370 * New command-line option, --compress-debug-sections, which requests
 371   compression of DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output
 372   file.  Compressed debug sections are supported by readelf, objdump, and
 373   gold, but not currently by Gnu ld.
 374
 375 Changes in 2.20:
 376
 377 * Added support for v850e2 and v850e2v3.
 378
 379 * GNU/Linux targets now supports "gnu_unique_object" as a value in the .type
 380   pseudo op.  It marks the symbol as being globally unique in the entire
 381   process.
 382
 383 * ARM assembler now supports .inst[.nw] pseudo-ops to insert opcodes specified
 384   in binary rather than text.
 385
 386 * Add support for common symbol alignment to PE formats.
 387
 388 * Add support for the new discriminator column in the DWARF line table,
 389   with a discriminator operand for the .loc directive.
 390
 391 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 392
 393 * The .type pseudo-op now accepts a type of STT_GNU_IFUNC which can be used to
 394   indicate that if the symbol is the target of a relocation, its value should
 395   not be use.  Instead the function should be invoked and its result used as
 396   the value.
 397
 398 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 399
 400 * Add support for Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.
 401
 402 Changes in 2.19:
 403
 404 * New pseudo op .cfi_val_encoded_addr, to record constant addresses in unwind
 405   tables without runtime relocation.
 406
 407 * New command-line option, -h-tick-hex, for sh, m32c, and h8/300 targets, which
 408   adds compatibility with H'00 style hex constants.
 409
 410 * New command-line option, -msse-check=[none|error|warning], for x86
 411   targets.
 412
 413 * New sub-option added to the assembler's -a command-line switch to
 414   generate a listing output.  The 'g' sub-option will insert into the listing
 415   various information about the assembly, such as assembler version, the
 416   command-line options used, and a time stamp.
 417
 418 * New command-line option -msse2avx for x86 target to encode SSE
 419   instructions with VEX prefix.
 420
 421 * Add Intel XSAVE, EPT, MOVBE, AES, PCLMUL, AVX/FMA support for x86 target.
 422
 423 * New command-line options, -march=CPU[,+EXTENSION...], -mtune=CPU,
 424   -mmnemonic=[att|intel], -msyntax=[att|intel], -mindex-reg,
 425   -mnaked-reg and -mold-gcc, for x86 targets.
 426
 427 * Support for generating wide character strings has been added via the new
 428   pseudo ops: .string16, .string32 and .string64.
 429
 430 * Support for SSE5 has been added to the i386 port.
 431
 432 Changes in 2.18:
 433
 434 * The GAS sources are now released under the GPLv3.
 435
 436 * Support for the National Semiconductor CR16 target has been added.
 437
 438 * Added gas .reloc pseudo.  This is a low-level interface for creating
 439   relocations.
 440
 441 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 442
 443 * Add support for Score target.
 444
 445 Changes in 2.17:
 446
 447 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 448
 449 * Support for ms2 architecture has been added.
 450
 451 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 452
 453 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 454   switches can be read from <file>.
 455
 456 * The SH target supports a new command-line switch --enable-reg-prefix which,
 457   if enabled, will allow register names to be optionally prefixed with a $
 458   character.  This allows register names to be distinguished from label names.
 459
 460 * Macros with a variable number of arguments are now supported. See the
 461   documentation for how this works.
 462
 463 * Added --reduce-memory-overheads switch to reduce the size of the hash
 464   tables used, at the expense of longer assembly times, and
 465   --hash-size=<NUMBER> to set the size of the hash tables used by gas.
 466
 467 * Macro names and macro parameter names can now be any identifier that would
 468   also be legal as a symbol elsewhere. For macro parameter names, this is
 469   known to cause problems in certain sources when the respective target uses
 470   characters inconsistently, and thus macro parameter references may no longer
 471   be recognized as such (see the documentation for details).
 472
 473 * Support the .f_floating, .d_floating, .g_floating and .h_floating directives
 474   for the VAX target in order to be more compatible with the VAX MACRO
 475   assembler.
 476
 477 * New command-line option -mtune=[itanium1|itanium2] for IA64 targets.
 478
 479 Changes in 2.16:
 480
 481 * Redefinition of macros now results in an error.
 482
 483 * New command-line option -mhint.b=[ok|warning|error] for IA64 targets.
 484
 485 * New command-line option -munwind-check=[warning|error] for IA64
 486   targets.
 487
 488 * The IA64 port now uses automatic dependency violation removal as its default
 489   mode.
 490
 491 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 492
 493 * Added support for generating unwind tables for ARM ELF targets.
 494
 495 * Add a -g command-line option to generate debug information in the target's
 496   preferred debug format.
 497
 498 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 499
 500 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 501
 502 * Added a pseudo-op (.secrel32) to generate 32 bit section relative relocations
 503   on pe[i]-i386; required for this target's DWARF 2 support.
 504
 505 * Support for Motorola MCF521x/5249/547x/548x added.
 506
 507 * Support for ColdFire EMAC instructions added and Motorola syntax for MAC/EMAC
 508   instrucitons.
 509
 510 * New command-line option -mno-shared for MIPS ELF targets.
 511
 512 * New command-line option --alternate and pseudo-ops .altmacro and .noaltmacro
 513   added to enter (and leave) alternate macro syntax mode.
 514
 515 Changes in 2.15:
 516
 517 * The MIPS -membedded-pic option (Embedded-PIC code generation) is
 518   deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 519
 520 * Added PIC m32r Linux (ELF) and support to M32R assembler.
 521
 522 * Added support for ARM V6.
 523
 524 * Added support for sh4a and variants.
 525
 526 * Support for Renesas M32R2 added.
 527
 528 * Limited support for Mapping Symbols as specified in the ARM ELF
 529   specification has been added to the arm assembler.
 530
 531 * On ARM architectures, added a new gas directive ".unreq" that undoes
 532   definitions created by ".req".
 533
 534 * Support for Motorola ColdFire MCF528x added.
 535
 536 * Added --gstabs+ switch to enable the generation of STABS debug format
 537   information with GNU extensions.
 538
 539 * Added support for MIPS64 Release 2.
 540
 541 * Added support for v850e1.
 542
 543 * Added -n switch for x86 assembler.  By default, x86 GAS replaces
 544   multiple nop instructions used for alignment within code sections
 545   with multi-byte nop instructions such as leal 0(%esi,1),%esi.  This
 546   switch disables the optimization.
 547
 548 * Removed -n option from MIPS assembler.  It was not useful, and confused the
 549   existing -non_shared option.
 550
 551 Changes in 2.14:
 552
 553 * Added support for MIPS32 Release 2.
 554
 555 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 556
 557 * Support for Intel's iWMMXt processor (an ARM variant) added.
 558
 559 * An assembler test generator has been contributed and an example file that
 560   uses it (gas/testsuite/gas/all/test-gen.c and test-exmaple.c).
 561
 562 * Support for SH2E added.
 563
 564 * GASP has now been removed.
 565
 566 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 567   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 568
 569 * Support for the Ubicom IP2xxx microcontroller added.
 570
 571 Changes in 2.13:
 572
 573 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 574   and FR500 included.
 575
 576 * Support for DLX processor added.
 577
 578 * GASP has now been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.  Use
 579   the macro facilities in GAS instead.
 580
 581 * GASP now correctly parses floating point numbers. Unless the base is
 582   explicitly specified, they are interpreted as decimal numbers regardless of
 583   the currently specified base.
 584
 585 Changes in 2.12:
 586
 587 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 588
 589 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 590
 591 * The ARM assembler now accepts -march=..., -mcpu=... and -mfpu=... for
 592   specifying the target instruction set.  The old method of specifying the
 593   target processor has been deprecated, but is still accepted for
 594   compatibility.
 595
 596 * Support for the VFP floating-point instruction set has been added to
 597   the ARM assembler.
 598
 599 * New psuedo op: .incbin to include a set of binary data at a given point
 600   in the assembly.  Contributed by Anders Norlander.
 601
 602 * The MIPS assembler now accepts -march/-mtune. -mcpu has been deprecated
 603   but still works for compatability.
 604
 605 * The MIPS assembler no longer issues a warning by default when it
 606   generates a nop instruction from a macro. The new command-line option
 607   -n will turn on the warning.
 608
 609 Changes in 2.11:
 610
 611 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 612
 613 * x86 gas now supports the full Pentium4 instruction set.
 614
 615 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 616
 617 * Support for Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12.
 618
 619 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C54x (tic54x).
 620
 621 * Support for IA-64.
 622
 623 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt.
 624
 625 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 626
 627 * x86 gas has a new .arch pseudo op to specify the target CPU architecture.
 628
 629 * x86 gas -q command-line option quietens warnings about register size changes
 630   due to suffix, indirect jmp/call without `*', stand-alone prefixes, and
 631   translating various deprecated floating point instructions.
 632
 633 Changes in 2.10:
 634
 635 * Support for the ARM msr instruction was changed to only allow an immediate
 636   operand when altering the flags field.
 637
 638 * Support for ATMEL AVR.
 639
 640 * Support for IBM 370 ELF.  Somewhat experimental.
 641
 642 * Support for numbers with suffixes.
 643
 644 * Added support for breaking to the end of repeat loops.
 645
 646 * Added support for parallel instruction syntax (DOUBLEBAR_PARALLEL).
 647
 648 * New .elseif pseudo-op added.
 649
 650 * New --fatal-warnings option.
 651
 652 * picoJava architecture support added.
 653
 654 * Motorola MCore 210 processor support added.
 655
 656 * A new pseudo-op .intel_syntax has been implemented to allow gas to parse i386
 657   assembly programs with intel syntax.
 658
 659 * New pseudo-ops .func,.endfunc to aid in debugging user-written assembler code.
 660
 661 * Added -gdwarf2 option to generate DWARF 2 debugging information.
 662
 663 * Full 16-bit mode support for i386.
 664
 665 * Greatly improved instruction operand checking for i386.  This change will
 666   produce errors or warnings on incorrect assembly code that previous versions
 667   of gas accepted.  If you get unexpected messages from code that worked with
 668   older versions of gas, please double check the code before reporting a bug.
 669
 670 * Weak symbol support added for COFF targets.
 671
 672 * Mitsubishi D30V support added.
 673
 674 * Texas Instruments c80 (tms320c80) support added.
 675
 676 * i960 ELF support added.
 677
 678 * ARM ELF support added.
 679
 680 Changes in 2.9:
 681
 682 * Texas Instruments c30 (tms320c30) support added.
 683
 684 * The assembler now optimizes the exception frame information generated by egcs
 685   and gcc 2.8.  The new --traditional-format option disables this optimization.
 686
 687 * Added --gstabs option to generate stabs debugging information.
 688
 689 * The -a option takes a new suboption, m (e.g., -alm) to expand macros in a
 690   listing.
 691
 692 * Added -MD option to print dependencies.
 693
 694 Changes in 2.8:
 695
 696 * BeOS support added.
 697
 698 * MIPS16 support added.
 699
 700 * Motorola ColdFire 5200 support added (configure for m68k and use -m5200).
 701
 702 * Alpha/VMS support added.
 703
 704 * m68k options --base-size-default-16, --base-size-default-32,
 705   --disp-size-default-16, and --disp-size-default-32 added.
 706
 707 * The alignment directives now take an optional third argument, which is the
 708   maximum number of bytes to skip.  If doing the alignment would require
 709   skipping more than the given number of bytes, the alignment is not done at
 710   all.
 711
 712 * The ELF assembler has a new pseudo-op, .symver, used for symbol versioning.
 713
 714 * The -a option takes a new suboption, c (e.g., -alc), to skip false
 715   conditionals in listings.
 716
 717 * Added new pseudo-op, .equiv; it's like .equ, except that it is an error if
 718   the symbol is already defined.
 719
 720 Changes in 2.7:
 721
 722 * The PowerPC assembler now allows the use of symbolic register names (r0,
 723   etc.) if -mregnames is used.  Symbolic names preceded by a '%' (%r0, etc.)
 724   can be used any time.  PowerPC 860 move to/from SPR instructions have been
 725   added.
 726
 727 * Alpha Linux (ELF) support added.
 728
 729 * PowerPC ELF support added.
 730
 731 * m68k Linux (ELF) support added.
 732
 733 * i960 Hx/Jx support added.
 734
 735 * i386/PowerPC gnu-win32 support added.
 736
 737 * SCO ELF support added.  For OpenServer 5 targets (i386-unknown-sco3.2v5) the
 738   default is to build COFF-only support.  To get a set of tools that generate
 739   ELF (they'll understand both COFF and ELF), you must configure with
 740   target=i386-unknown-sco3.2v5elf.
 741
 742 * m88k-motorola-sysv3* support added.
 743
 744 Changes in 2.6:
 745
 746 * Gas now directly supports macros, without requiring GASP.
 747
 748 * Gas now has an MRI assembler compatibility mode.  Use -M or --mri to select
 749   MRI mode.  The pseudo-op ``.mri 1'' will switch into the MRI mode until the
 750   ``.mri 0'' is seen; this can be convenient for inline assembler code.
 751
 752 * Added --defsym SYM=VALUE option.
 753
 754 * Added -mips4 support to MIPS assembler.
 755
 756 * Added PIC support to Solaris and SPARC SunOS 4 assembler.
 757
 758 Changes in 2.4:
 759
 760 * Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script.
 761
 762 * ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw.
 763
 764 * Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved
 765   debugging support.
 766
 767 * Support for the control registers in the 68060.
 768
 769 * Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to
 770   provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some
 771   features not available in the native assembler.  If the native assembler is
 772   used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is.
 773
 774 * Usage message is available with "--help".
 775
 776 * The GNU Assembler Preprocessor (gasp) is included.  (Actually, it was in 2.3
 777   also, but didn't get into the NEWS file.)
 778
 779 * Weak symbol support for a.out.
 780
 781 * A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed.
 782   Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed.
 783
 784 * Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by
 785   Paul Kranenburg.
 786
 787 * Improved Alpha support.  Immediate constants can have a much larger range
 788   now. Support for the 21164 has been contributed by Digital.
 789
 790 * Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall.
 791
 792 Changes in 2.3:
 793
 794 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn.
 795
 796 * RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor.
 797
 798 * VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit,
 799   based on mail received from various people.  The `-h#' option should work
 800   again too.
 801
 802 * HP-PA work, by Jeff Law.  Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work
 803   with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6.  As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special
 804   version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3.  You can retrieve
 805   this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu
 806   in the "dist" directory.
 807
 808 * Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple
 809   simple tests okay.  I haven't put it through extensive testing.  (GNU make is
 810   currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.)
 811
 812 * Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format).  The gas support is
 813   based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format.  I'm afraid
 814   the alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed;
 815   making it work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways.
 816
 817 * Irix 5 support.
 818
 819 * The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a
 820   couple different versions of expect and dejagnu.
 821
 822 * Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more
 823   flexibility in evaluating them in some cases.  Some details of relocation
 824   handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been
 825   added, to make the Alpha port easier.
 826
 827 * New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times.  This is
 828   intended to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in
 829   various phases of compilation.  (You should be able to get all of them
 830   printed out with "gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.)
 831
 832 Changes in 2.2:
 833
 834 * RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added.
 835
 836 * Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to
 837   have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to
 838   gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the
 839   impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be
 840   reliable.
 841
 842 * The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is
 843   displayed.  This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional
 844   messages about "internal errors".
 845
 846 * ELF support is falling into place.  Support for the 386 should be working.
 847   Support for SPARC Solaris is in.  HPPA support from Utah is being integrated.
 848
 849 * Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately
 850   boiled down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant.  This permits slightly
 851   more complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey
 852   known.
 853
 854 * DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats.
 855   If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new
 856   sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section.  The format of the .stab
 857   section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is
 858   its string table.  For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC
 859   to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB
 860   that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later).
 861
 862 * LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported.  SPARC LynxOS
 863   support is in progress.
 864
 865 Changes in 2.1:
 866
 867 * Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been
 868   incorporated, but not well tested yet.
 869
 870 * Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile
 871   with gcc now.
 872
 873 * Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support,
 874   suggested by Ronald Cole.
 875
 876 * HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah.  This
 877   includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris
 878   2.x.  Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work.
 879
 880 * HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in.
 881
 882 * Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support.
 883
 884 * Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux).
 885
 886 * Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable.
 887
 888 Changes in 2.0:
 889
 890 * Mostly bug fixes.
 891
 892 * Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work.
 893
 894 Changes in 1.94:
 895
 896 * BFD merge is partly done.  Adventurous souls may try giving configure the
 897   "--with-bfd-assembler" option.  Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out
 898   format accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it.  It's the default only for OS "elf"
 899   or "solaris".  (ELF isn't really supported yet.  It needs work.  I've got
 900   some code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not
 901   fully merged yet.)
 902
 903 * The 68K opcode table has been split in half.  It should now compile under gcc
 904   without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory.
 905
 906 * A couple data structures have been reduced in size.  This should result in
 907   saving a little bit of space at runtime.
 908
 909 * Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in.  The OSF
 910   code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet.  (I can
 911   make it available, if anyone wants to try it out.)  Ralph's code, for BSD
 912   4.4, supports a.out format.  We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's
 913   coming.
 914
 915 * Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added.
 916
 917 * VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric
 918   Youngdale.
 919
 920 Changes in 1.93.01:
 921
 922 * For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851.
 923
 924 * For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes.
 925
 926 * For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names.  For COFF format, which
 927   doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0"
 928   can be distinguished from the register.
 929
 930 * Last public release was 1.38.  Lots of configuration changes since then, lots
 931   of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed.
 932
 933 \f
 934 Copyright (C) 2012-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 935
 936 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 937 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 938 notice and this notice are preserved.
 939
 940 Local variables:
 941 fill-column: 79
 942 End: