From: Ken Raeburn Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 19:44:17 +0000 (+0000) Subject: some news X-Git-Url: https://git.libre-soc.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=4d61cba98770961e820bdc8e1ea4025ebebb5018;p=binutils-gdb.git some news --- diff --git a/gas/NEWS b/gas/NEWS new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..c35108e7d5e --- /dev/null +++ b/gas/NEWS @@ -0,0 +1,187 @@ +-*- text -*- + +Changes since 2.3: + +Converted this directory to use an autoconf-generated configure script. + +ARM support, from Richard Earnshaw. + +Updated VMS support, from Pat Rankin, including considerably improved debugging +support. + +Support for the control registers in the 68060. + +Handles (ignores) a new directive ".this_GCC_requires_the_GNU_assembler", to +provide for possible future gcc changes, for targets where gas provides some +features not available in the native assembler. If the native assembler is +used, it should become obvious pretty quickly what the problem is. + +Usage message is available with "--help". + +Weak symbol support for a.out. + +A bug in the listing code which could cause an infinite loop has been fixed. +Bugs in listings when generating a COFF object file have also been fixed. + +Initial i386-svr4 PIC implementation from Eric Youngdale, based on code by Paul +Kranenburg. This code was oriented towards gas version 1.xx; in updating some +aspects of it for version 2, I broke it. + +Improved Alpha support. Immediate constants can have a much larger range now. +Support for the 21164 has been added. + +Updated ns32k (pc532-mach, netbsd532) support from Ian Dall. + +Changes since 2.2: + +Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie and Ken Raeburn. + +RS/6000 and PowerPC support by Ian Taylor. + +VMS command scripts (make-gas.com, config-gas.com) have been worked on a bit, +based on mail received from various people. The `-h#' option should work again +too. + +HP-PA work, by Jeff Law. Note, for the PA, gas-2.3 has been designed to work +with gdb-4.12 and gcc-2.6. As gcc-2.6 has not been released yet, a special +version of gcc-2.5.8 has been patched to work with gas-2.3. You can retrieve +this special version of gcc-2.5.8 via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu +in the "dist" directory. + +Vax support in gas fixed for BSD, so it builds and seems to run a couple simple +tests okay. I haven't put it through extensive testing. (GNU make is +currently required for BSD 4.3 builds.) + +Support for the DEC Alpha, running OSF/1 (ECOFF format). The gas support is +based on code donated by CMU, which used an a.out-based format. I'm afraid the +alpha-a.out support is pretty badly mangled, and much of it removed; making it +work will require rewriting it as BFD support for the format anyways. + +Irix 5 support. + +The test suites have been fixed up a bit, so that they should work with a +couple different versions of expect and dejagnu. + +Symbols' values are now handled internally as expressions, permitting more +flexibility in evaluating them in some cases. Some details of relocation +handling have also changed, and simple constant pool management has been added, +to make the Alpha port easier. + +New option "--statistics" for printing out program run times. This is intended +to be used with the gcc "-Q" option, which prints out times spent in various +phases of compilation. (You should be able to get all of them printed out with +"gcc -Q -Wa,--statistics", I think.) + +---------------------------------------------------------------- + +Changes since 2.1: + +RS/6000 AIX and MIPS SGI Irix 5 support has been added. + +Configurations that are still in development (and therefore are convenient to +have listed in configure.in) still get rejected without a minor change to +gas/Makefile.in, so people not doing development work shouldn't get the +impression that support for such configurations is actually believed to be +reliable. + +The program name (usually "as") is printed when a fatal error message is +displayed. This should prevent some confusion about the source of occasional +messages about "internal errors". + +ELF support is falling into place. Support for the 386 should be working. +Support for SPARC Solaris is in. HPPA support from Utah is being integrated. + +Symbol values are maintained as expressions instead of being immediately boiled +down to add-symbol, sub-symbol, and constant. This permits slightly more +complex calculations involving symbols whose values are not alreadey known. + +DBX-style debugging info ("stabs") is now supported for COFF formats. +If any stabs directives are seen in the source, GAS will create two new +sections: a ".stab" and a ".stabstr" section. The format of the .stab +section is nearly identical to the a.out symbol format, and .stabstr is +its string table. For this to be useful, you must have configured GCC +to generate stabs (by defining DBX_DEBUGGING_INFO), and must have a GDB +that can use the stab sections (4.11 or later). + +LynxOS, on i386 and m68k platforms, is now supported. SPARC LynxOS +support is in progress. + +---------------------------------------------------------------- + +Changes for 2.1: + +Several small fixes for i386-aix (PS/2) support from Minh Tran-Le have been +incorporated, but not well tested yet. + +Altered the opcode table split for m68k; it should require less VM to compile +with gcc now. + +Some minor adjustments to add (Convergent Technologies') Miniframe support, +suggested by Ronald Cole. + +HPPA support (running OSF only, not HPUX) has been contributed by Utah. This +includes improved ELF support, which I've started adapting for SPARC Solaris +2.x. Integration isn't completely, so it probably won't work. + +HP9000/300 support, donated by HP, has been merged in. + +Ian Taylor has finished the MIPS ECOFF (Ultrix, Irix) support. + +Better error messages for unsupported configurations (e.g., hppa-hpux). + +Test suite framework is starting to become reasonable. + +---------------------------------------------------------------- + +Changes for 2.0: + +Mostly bug fixes. + +Some more merging of BFD and ELF code, but ELF still doesn't work. + +---------------------------------------------------------------- + +Changes for 1.94: + +BFD merge is partly done. Adventurous souls may try giving configure the +"--with-bfd-assembler" option. Currently, ELF format requires it, a.out format +accepts it; SPARC CPU accepts it. It's the default only for OS "elf" or +"solaris". (ELF isn't really supported yet. It needs work. I've got some +code from Utah for HP-PA ELF, and from DG for m88k ELF, but they're not fully +merged yet.) + +The 68K opcode table has been split in half. It should now compile under gcc +without consuming ridiculous amounts of memory. + +A couple data structures have been reduced in size. This should result in +saving a little bit of space at runtime. + +Support for MIPS, from OSF and Ralph Campbell, has been merged in. The OSF +code provided ROSE format support, which I haven't merged in yet. (I can make +it available, if anyone wants to try it out.) Ralph's code, for BSD 4.4, +supports a.out format. We don't have ECOFF support in just yet; it's coming. + +Support for the Hitachi H8/500 has been added. + +VMS host and target support should be working now, thanks chiefly to Eric +Youngdale. + +---------------------------------------------------------------- + +Changes for 1.93.01: + +For m68k, support for more processors has been added: 68040, CPU32, 68851. + +For i386, .align is now power-of-two; was number-of-bytes. + +For m68k, "%" is now accepted before register names. For COFF format, which +doesn't use underscore prefixes for C labels, it is required, so variable "a0" +can be distinguished from the register. + +Last public release was 1.38. Lots of configuration changes since then, lots +of new CPUs and formats, lots of bugs fixed. + + +Local variables: +fill-column: 79 +End: