gas/NEWS

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