vasm

vasm is a portable and retargetable assembler to create linkable objects in various formats or absolute code. Multiple CPU-, syntax and output-modules can be selected.

Many common directives/pseudo-opcodes are supported (depending on the syntax module) as well as CPU-specific extensions.

The assembler supports optimizations (e.g. choosing the shortest possible branch instruction or addressing mode) and relaxations (e.g. converting a branch to an absolute jump when necessary).

Most syntax modules support macros, include directives, repetitions, conditional assembly and local symbols.

• 6502 family (including 65C02, 65CE02, DTV, 45GS02, HU6280, 65802, 65816)
• 6800 family (6800, 6801, 6803, 68HC11)
• 6809 family (6809, 6309, Turbo9, Konami-2 and 68HC12)
• 80x86 family (IA32 8/16/32 bit, using AT&T-syntax)
• ARM (architecture ARMv1 to ARMv4, including THUMB mode)
• C16x/ST10
• ColdFire family (all models of V2, V3, V4, V4e)
• HANS project (32-bit FPGA CPU)
• Jaguar RISC (GPU and DSP instruction sets)
• M680x0 family (including M6888x, M68851, CPU32 and Apollo 68080)
• PDP-11 architecture (includes EIS, FIS)
• PowerPC family (POWER, 40x, 440, 460, 6xx, 7xx, 7xxx, 860, Book-E, e300 and e500)
• QNICE (elegant 16-bit FPGA CPU)
• Raspberry-Pi VideoCore IV
• Sony SPC700
• SunPlus μnSP CPU (ISA V1.0 and V1.1)
• Sweet16 (Steve Wozniak's pseudo CPU)
• TR3200 (virtual CPU from 0x10c)
• Z80 family (Z80, 8080, 8085, GBZ80, 64180, RCM2/3/4k)

• Standard (GNU-as style) syntax
• Motorola/Freescale 68k syntax (Devpac compatible)
• Atari MadMac syntax (6502, 68k, Jaguar)
• Old 8-bit style syntax

• a.out (JRISC, M68k, x86)
• AOF ARM/Acorn object file format (ARM)
• Amiga hunk format (M68k)
• Apple DOS, Atari COM, Commodore PRG, Oric TAP binary formats (6502)
• Atari TOS executable format (M68k)
• Atari DRI object file format (M68k)
• C #define output format (all)
• C256 Foenix PGX and PGZ binary formats (65816)
• COFF (ARM, M68k, PowerPC, x86)
• EHF extended hunk format (PowerPC)
• ELF (ARM, JRISC, M68k, PowerPC, x86)
• GST object file format
• HANS project output format
• Intel-Hex format (all)
• MOS Paper Tape format (all)
• Motorola S-Record format (all)
• o65 relocatable format (6502, 65816)
• Raw, binary output (all)
• Sharp X68000 Xfile (and Zfile) format (M68k)
• Tandy Color Computer and Dragon DOS binaries (6809)
• Test, debugging output (all, default)
• VOBJ proprietary versatile object format (all)
• Wozmon monitor format (6502)

• Local symbols could become unavailable when defined after a PC-symbol expression or a directive dealing with the current PC. Fixes a regression from last version, V2.0e.
• New option -ctrace to enable tracing of conditional assembly.
• New option -iserror=<n> to turn a warning into an error message.
• And-operations with a local label are allowed, as long as the constant is less than the section's alignment where the label resides.
• All output modules should handle uninitialized space properly.
• Print relocation type name instead of the number in output module errors.
• Fixed alignment of addresses which have their MSB set.
• Fixed potential memory corruption bug with more than 32/64 sections while referencing label1-label2 from a different section.
• m68k: B<cc>.L is accepted with a warning as B<cc>.W in 68000 mode (for compatibility with very old 68000 sources).
• m68k: Command line option -opt-allbra must not be reset by the directive opt o-. It should still be present after branch optimization is reenabled with opt o1+.
• m68k: Option -opt-jbra (directive: OPT ob+) should not be restricted to convert external references only.
• m68k: Fixed regression from V2.0: An optimization of an absolute destination to 16-bit PC-relative was no longer detected (e.g. 68020+ CMP).
• m68k: Added missing Devpac2/3 opt directives: e, y, z, alink, amiga, even, hcln, inconce, line, list1, mex, traceif, where list1 and mex have currently no function.
• m68k: Devpac-compatibility mode has to report word-accesses with odd absolute operands by default (-warnunaligned, opt e+).
• m68k: -warnunaligned should not have any effect for LEA and PEA instructions.
• m68k: Sections with <type>_P should cause an error with Devpac-compatbility.
• m68k: Added missing optimization of adda/suba #-x,An to subq/addq #x,An, when x is between -8 and -1.
• m68k: -showopt and OPT ow+ print the total number of optimizations and translations after the last pass.
• m68k: Apollo: move.l Bm,An and Am,Bn should not be allowed.
• jagrisc: Pseudo instructions AJR and AJUMP ensure that a JR or JUMP instruction is 32-bit aligned (required for working with main memory). Also -opt-jr works with AJR and translates into AJUMP when needed.
• 6809: Konami2 ISA allows X, Y, S, U as the offset register for direct and indirect addressing.
• 6809: Fixed register parser to work with identifiers which start with a register name.
• mot-syntax: Allow FEQU without size extension.
• mot-syntax: Fixed ODD directive. Finally.
• std-syntax: Support infix operator ! for bitwise Or-Not (gas compatibility).
• std-syntax: boolean true should be -1 not 1. But !0 is still 1.
• oldstyle-syntax: Symbols with assignment directives may always be written with leading whitespace in default mode. Only with -i (ignore trailing blanks in operand) you have to use -spcequ to enable that feature.
• madmac-syntax: New directives: du.b, du.w, du.l to declare uninitialized space.
• madmac-syntax: Added align directive from rmac, which can optionally specify a 16-bit fill value.
• madmac-syntax: Added a standard section directive for more flexibility.
• hunk-output: New option -hcln, to select HiSoft HCLN line debug output, instead of default SAS/C line debug.
• tos-output: Fixed addends for SD- and PC-relative relocations in DRI objects.
• o65-output: Better range-check for 8-bit absolute relocations.

• Fixed -nocase option for symbols, which was broken in last release.
• New output module "aof" for the ARM/Acorn Object Format, used for example by Acorn and 3DO.
• New cpu backend for Wozniak's Sweet16 pseudo CPU (also useful as a simple tutorial backend).
• Fixed ".." include paths and misdetection of paths starting with '/' as being absolute for AmigaOS hosts.
• ARM: Support for automatic literal pools, when using the '=' operand-prefix with LDR, to load any constant or label addresses to a register. Includes optimization to MOV or ADR, if possible. Literal pools are dumped with the ltorg directive, or automatically at the end of any section.
• ARM: Alternatively permit an SWI immediate operand with '#'.
• m68k: Register symbol definitions should be case-insensitive in Devpac compatibility mode.
• m68k: Apollo: Adapted MOVEIW opcode for latest cores.
• 6809: Fixed branch optimization/translation (-opt-branch), which was broken since the introduction of Konami-support in V2.0c.
• jagrisc: CPU-specific directives (.equr, etc.) with a leading dot were no longer recognized since V1.8k, when no other dot-prefixed directive was used before and the syntax module was "madmac".
• std-syntax: ELF visibility types: .hidden, .internal, .protected.
• oldstyle-syntax: ASSERT and FAIL directives should not create a default section if no section exists at that point.
• oldstyle-syntax: New option -spcequ removes the restriction that equate symbols have to start on the first column.
• oldstyle-syntax: Add COND and ENDC directives for compatibility.
• elf-output: Support for visibility types.
• tos-output: Alignments > 32 bit in data or bss could lead to corrupt output.
• xfile-output: Alignments > 32 bit in data or bss could lead to corrupt output.

• Improved performance of expression evaluation.
• New output module "coff" for writing COFF object files. Currently supported are m68k, x86, PPC and ARM. Contributed by Jean-Paul Mari.
• Added indirect symbols by exporting equates pointing to an imported destination symbol. Currently supported by the output modules VOBJ and a.out.
• -chklabels option is the default now. You can still disable the warnings.
• List symbols sorted by their unsigned value.
• Fixed internal error with non-case-sensitive macro redefinitions.
• m68k: Apollo: Optimize ANDI.L #$ff/ffff,Dn to EXTUB/W.L Dn. Optimize CMP.L #x,<ea> to CMPIW.L #x,<ea> (with -32768 <= x <= 32767) and ADD/SUB.L #x,<ea> to ADDIW #x,<ea> (negated x for SUB).
• m68k: Apollo: added LPSTOP.
• PPC: Set address size to 8 for 64-bit CPUs. Fixes some output formats.
• ARM: Allow any type of immediate constant, like characters.
• jagrisc: Fixed -opt-jr. Operands for the JUMP were swapped.
• jagrisc: Use natural default alignment for 32 and 64-bit data.
• mot-syntax: Include ds.p, blk.p, rs.p, etc. for completeness (same as .x).
• aout-output: Fixed PC-relative relocs on a different local section.
• aout-output: New option -aoutalign to change the default section alignment.
• aout-output: Indirect symbols.
• vobj-output: No longer write local symbols with -nosym option.
• vobj-output: Indirect symbols.

• Fixed output of the last byte in a CPU's address space for multiple output formats allowing absolute addressing: gst, ihex, pap, srec, woz.
• Try to convert 128-bit expressions to the backend's native address size when possible, while parsing it.
• Support left and right shift operations using a shift-count larger than the backend's native address size.
• Defining symbols which were declared as externally defined is no longer an error but a warning, as this is usually harmless.
• Fixed possible internal error when defining a label on the same line as a section directive.
• m68k: Reverted change from V2.0: out of range warnings have become errors again. These checks can be disabled by multiple options and directives.
• m68k: Improved error messages for quick-immediate and shift-values.
• m68k: Huge (128-bit) expressions are allowed in immediate 8/16/32-bit addressing modes when the final value fits or when range-checking was disabled.
• m68k: Apollo: Disabled illegal optimization of ADDI.B #n,An into ADDQ.
• m68k: New option -warnunaligned to warn about accesses to odd addresses.
• 6809: -konami2 option now enables the original instruction set (rev. 052001), while the extended instruction set for later revisions is available via -konami2ext (e.g. rev. 052526, 053248).
• jagrisc: New option -opt-jr=<n> automatically translates out-of-range JR branches into MOVEI plus JUMP, using Rn as a temporary register.
• jagrisc: New option -no-opt disables all standard optimizations.
• jagrisc: Optimize MOVEI to MOVEQ when possible (constant from 0 to 31).
• jagrisc: Fixed JR/JUMP with externally defined CC.
• jagrisc: Allow relocations for LOAD/STORE (Rn+x), but note that there are still errors when x becomes 32.
• mot-syntax: -devpac compatility automatically disables warnings for xref on defined symbols and xdef on undefined symbols.
• oldstyle-syntax: Fixed data directives with comment characters (for example: db 1,';',2).
• vobj-output: Fix handling of section sizes which have the MSB set.
• bin-output: New option -join implements a mini-linker for multiple sections.

• New CPU backend for the SPC700, as used in the SuperFamicom and SNES for sound processing.
• New option -no-msrcdebug to disable source level debugging within a macro context (MSOURCE directive in mot-syntax).
• Fixed potential crash with NOLIST directives, when listing file is enabled (new bug since V2.0).
• Assign a relocated org address to labels already in the parser pass to make conditional assembly (sort of) work.
• Fixed DWARF output for advancing the state machine by 15 * instruction size.
• m68k: Allow Apollo immediate FPU instructions with a third operand again (broken since V2.0).
• 6502: Fixed external branch label references.
• 6502: Fixed Mega65 32-bit indirect instructions (broken since V1.9a).
• 6809: Added Konami-6809 support, used on arcade boards (patch submitted by Jim Westfall).
• 6809: Fixed two-byte opcodes with the MSB in the first byte set (for example HC12 TAP).
• mot-syntax: The rept directive allows for an optional counter symbol name.
• oldstyle-syntax: The label field allows preceding whitespace now, provided it is followed by a ':', an '=', or an assignment directive (EQU, SET).
• oldstyle-syntax: Allow anonymous labels together with multiple statements per line (Z80).
• oldstyle-syntax: ascii does not null-terminate strings. asc is not the same as byte.
• oldstyle-syntax: The size of multi-byte data and space directives depends on the target CPU now. For example long is 24 bits for 6502/65816.
• oldstyle-syntax: defp uses the target's address size, like da and addr.
• oldstyle-syntax: fdb doesn't define words but double-bytes (whenever that matters).
• oldstyle-syntax: New directive dl (long word).
• oldstyle-syntax: New directives with fixed bit-size for forming constant data and space: di8, di16, di24, di32, di64, ds8, ds16, ds24, ds32, ds64.
• oldstyle-syntax: The rept and repeat directives allow an optional second argument to specify the name of an iteration symbol to use.
• hunk-output: -kick1hunks ignores section memory flags except CHIP and FAST with a warning.

• Fixed bad path in source level debugging information, when the initial source file and an include file were based on the same "compile directory".
• Get rid of C99-round() dependency.
• Fixed empty strings, which were broken in V2.0. They should not generate any data.
• When position-independant code is requested (-pic option) the assembler defaults to relocatable mode (to be able to detect violations).
• Allow 64-bit (or more) expressions with absolute label addresses.
• 6502: Additionally allow BRK with an immediate 8-bit operand.
• 6502: Operand prefix character '?' can be used to select the Memory/Bank-ID where the referenced symbol resides. Requires the use of VOBJ and vlink.
• mot-syntax: A double colon after the label also exports RS symbols now.
• madmac-syntax: New directives: ifdef and ifndef (just for convenience, they are no official MadMac directives!).
• madmac-syntax: Fix problem with print-directive when string is empty.
• oldstyle-syntax: Fixed usage of '$' as current-PC symbol for Z80, which was broken since V2.0.
• oldstyle-syntax: Fixed definition of structure offset labels, which should be referenceable by structname.offsetname. Broken since V2.0.
• hunk-output: Fixed output generated by Databss directives (like DX in mot-syntax). Broken in V2.0.
• hunk-output: -linedebug: do not generate multiple entries per line.