gas/NEWS

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