diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Wishlist')
| -rw-r--r-- | Wishlist | 225 |
1 files changed, 195 insertions, 30 deletions
@@ -1,23 +1,168 @@ NASM Wishlist ============= -- forward-reference tracking is instruction-granular not operand- - granular. Bummer. +Numbers on right hand side are version numbers that it would be nice to +have this done by. ? means I haven't looked at it yet. -- see if BITS can be made to do anything sensible in obj (eg set the +- Create a binary RDF tools distribution. Should probably be distributed 0.98 + seperately. + +- Check misc/ide.cfg into RCS as Watcom IDE enhancement thingy. 0.98 + (nop@dlc.fi) + +- Package the Linux Assembler HOWTO. 0.98 + +- AMD 3dNow extensions need documenting. 0.98 + +- prototypes of lrotate don't match in test/*. Fix. 0.98 + +- Build djgpp binaries for 0.98 onwards. Look into PMODE/W as a stub 0.98 + - it might be a lot better than CWSDPMI. It's in PMW133.ZIP. + +- Fix `%error' giving error messages twice. 0.99 + Not especially important, as changes planned for 1.1x below will make + the preprocessor be only called once. + +- Sort out problems with OBJ: 0.99 + * TLINK32 doesn't seem to like SEGDEF32 et al. So for that, we + should avoid xxx32 records wherever we can. + * However, didn't we change _to_ using xxx32 at some stage? Try + to remember why and when. + * Apparently Delphi's linker has trouble with two or more + globals being defined inside a PUBDEF32. Don't even know if it + _can_ cope with a PUBDEF16. + * Might need extra flags. *sigh* + +- Symbol table output may possibly be useful. 0.99 + Ken Martwick (kenm@efn.org) wants the following format: + labelname type offset(hex) repetition count + Possibly include xref addresses after repetition count? + +- There are various other bugs in outelf.c that make certain kinds 0.99 + of relocation not work. See zbrown.asm. Looks like we may have to do + a major rewrite of parts of it. Compare some NASM code output with + equivalent GAS code output. Look at the ELF spec. Generally fix things. + +- NASM is currently using a kludge in ELF that involves defining 0.99 + a symbol at a zero absolute offset. This isn't needed, as the + documented solution to the problem that this solves is to use + SHN_UNDEF. + +- Debug information, in all formats it can be usefully done in. 0.99 + * including line-number record support. + * "George C. Lindauer" <gclind01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu> + wants to have some say in how this goes through. + * Andrew Crabtree <andrewc@rosemail.rose.hp.com> wants to help out. + +- Think about a line-continuation character. 0.99 + +- Consider allowing declaration of two labels on the same line, + syntax 'label1[:] label2[:] ... instruction'. Need to investigate + feasibility. 0.99 + +- Quoting of quotes by doubling them, in string and char constants. 0.99 + +- Two-operand syntax for SEGMENT/SECTION macro to avoid warnings 0.99 + of ignored section parameters on reissue of __SECT__. + Or maybe skip the warning if the given parameters are identical to + what was actually stored. Investigate. + +- Apparently we are not missing a PSRAQ instruction, because it + doesn't exist. Check that it doesn't exist as an undocumented + instruction, or something stupid like that. 0.99 + +- Any assembled form starting 0x80 can also start 0x82. ndisasm 1.00 + should know this. New special code in instruction encodings, + probably. + +- Pointing an EQU at an external symbol now generates an error. There 1.05 + may be a better way of handling this; we should look into it. + Ideally, the label mechanism should be changed to cope with one + label being declared relative to another - that may work, but could be + a pain to implement (or is it? it may be easy enough that you just + need to declare a new offset in the same segment...) This should be done + before v1.0 is released. There is a comment regarding this in labels.c, + towards the end of the file, which discusses ways of fixing this. + +- nested %rep used to cause a panic. Now a more informative error 1.10 + message is produced. This problem whould be fixed before v1.0. + See comment in switch() statement block for PP_REP in do_directive() + in preproc.c (line 1585, or thereabouts) + +- Contribution: zgraeme.tar contains improved hash table routines ? + contributed by Graeme Defty <graeme@HK.Super.NET> for use in the + label manager. + +- Contribution: zsyntax.zip contains a syntax-highlighting mode for ? + NASM, for use with the Aurora text editor (??). + +- Contribution: zvim.zip contains a syntax-highlighting mode for ? + NASM, for use with vim. + +- Contribution: zkendal1.zip and zkendal2.zip contain Kendall ? + Bennett's (<KendallB@scitechsoft.com>) alternative syntax stuff, + providing an alternative syntax mode for NASM which allows a macro + set to be written that allows the same source files to be + assembled with NASM and TASM. + +- Add the UD2 instruction. ? + +- Add the four instructions documented in 24368901.pdf (Intel's own ? + document). + +- Some means of avoiding MOV memoffs,EAX which apparently the 1.10? + Pentium pairing detector thinks modifies EAX. Similar means of + choosing instruction encodings where necessary. + +- The example of ..@ makes it clear that a ..@ label isn't just ? + local, but doesn't make it clear that it isn't just global either. + +- hpa wants an evaluator operator for ceil(log2(x)). ? + +- Extra reloc types in ELF: R_386_16 type 20, PC16 is 21, 8 is 22, PC8 is 23. + Add support for the 16s at least. ? + + +- Lazy section creation or selective section output, in COFF/win32 ? + at least and probably other formats: don't bother to emit a section + if it contains no data. Particularly the default auto-created + section. We believe zero-length sections crash at least WLINK (in + win32). + +- Make the flags field in `struct itemplate' in insns.h a long ? + instead of an int. + +- Implement %ifref to check whether a single-line macro has ever been ? + expanded since (last re) definition. Or maybe not. We'll see. + +- add pointer to \k{insLEAVE} and \k{insENTER} in chapters about ? + mixed-language programming. + +- Some equivalent to TASM's GLOBAL directive, ie something which ? + defines a symbol as external if it doesn't end up being defined + but defines it as public if it does end up being defined. + +- Documentation doesn't explain about C++ name mangling. ? + +- see if BITS can be made to do anything sensible in obj (eg set the ? default new-segment property to Use32). -- __DATE__, __TIME__, and text variants of __NASM_MAJOR__ and +- OBJ: coalesce consecutive offset and segment fixups for the same ? + location into full-32bit-pointer fixups. This is apparently + necessary because some twazzock in the PowerBASIC development + team didn't deign to support the OMF spec the way the rest of the + world sees it. + +- Allow % to be separated from the rest of a preproc directive, for ? + alternative directive indentation styles. + +- __DATE__, __TIME__, and text variants of __NASM_MAJOR__ and ? __NASM_MINOR__. -- Warn on TIMES combined with multi-line macros. TIMES gets applied +- Warn on TIMES combined with multi-line macros. TIMES gets applied 1.00 to first line only - should bring to users' attention. -- Add support for lcc 4.0. - * If-when this happens, remember to bump the `supported lcc - version' number in Readme. - -- Re-work the evaluator, again, with a per-object-format fixup +- Re-work the evaluator, again, with a per-object-format fixup 1.10 routine, so as to be able to cope with section offsets "really" being pure numbers; should be able to allow at _least_ the two common idioms @@ -28,17 +173,33 @@ NASM Wishlist had to. (_Always_ returning UNKNOWN on pass one, though a lovely clean design, breaks the first of the above examples.) -- Preprocessor identifier concatenation? +- Preprocessor identifier concatenation? 1.10 -- Arbitrary section names in `bin'. +- Arbitrary section names in `bin'. ? + Is this necessary? Is it even desirable? -- Ability to read from a pipe. Obviously not useful under dos, so +- Ability to read from a pipe. Obviously not useful under dos, so 1.10 memory problems with storing entire input file aren't a problem either. -- Subsection support? + Related topic: file caching under DOS/32 bit... 1.10? + maybe even implement discardable buffers that get thrown away + when we get a NULL returned from malloc(). Only really useful under + DOS. Think about it. + + Another related topic: possibly spool out the pre-processed 1.10? + stuff to a file, to avoid having to re-process it. Possible problems + with preprocessor values not known on pass 1? Have a look... + + Or maybe we can spool out a pre-parsed version...? 1.10 + Need to investigate feasibility. Does the results from the parser + change from pass 1 to pass 2? Would it be feasible to alter it so that + the parser returns an invariant result, and this is then processed + afterwards to resolve label references, etc? -- A good ALIGN mechanism, similar to GAS's. GAS pads out space by +- Subsection support? ? + +- A good ALIGN mechanism, similar to GAS's. GAS pads out space by 1.10? means of the following (32-bit) instructions: 8DB42600000000 lea esi,[esi+0x0] 8DB600000000 lea esi,[esi+0x0] @@ -55,7 +216,7 @@ NASM Wishlist Also re-work the macro form so that when given one argument in a code section it calls this feature. -- Possibly a means whereby FP constants can be specified as +- Possibly a means whereby FP constants can be specified as ? immediate operands to non-FP instructions. * Possible syntax: MOV EAX,FLOAT 1.2 to get a single-precision FP constant. Then maybe MOV EAX,HI_FLOAT 1.2 and MOV EAX,LO_FLOAT @@ -67,37 +228,41 @@ NASM Wishlist chunks, one-byte chunks, even stranger chunks, and pieces of ten-byte reals to be bandied around as well. -- A UNION macro might be quite cool, now that ABSOLUTE is sane +- A UNION macro might be quite cool, now that ABSOLUTE is sane ? enough to be able to handle it. -- An equivalent to gcc's ## stringify operator, plus string +- An equivalent to gcc's ## stringify operator, plus string ? concatenation, somehow implemented without undue ugliness, so as to be able to do `%include "/my/path/%1"' in a macro, or something similar... -- Actually _do_ something with the processor, privileged and - undocumented flags in the instruction table. +- Actually _do_ something with the processor, privileged and 1.10 + undocumented flags in the instruction table. When this happens, + consider allowing PMULHRW to map to either of the Cyrix or AMD + versions? -- Maybe NEC V20/V30 instructions? +- Maybe NEC V20/V30 instructions? ? - Yet more object formats. - * Possibly direct support for .EXE files? - -- Debug information, in all formats it can be usefully done in. - * including line-number record support. + * Possibly direct support for .EXE files? 1.10 -- Symbol map in binary format. Format-specific options... +- Symbol map in binary format. Format-specific options... 1.10? -- REDESIGN: Think about EQU dependency, and about start-point +- REDESIGN: Think about EQU dependency, and about start-point 1.20? specification in OBJ. Possibly re-think directive support. -- Think about a wrapper program like gcc? Possibly invent a _patch_ +- Think about a wrapper program like gcc? Possibly invent a _patch_ 2.00? for gcc so that it can take .asm files on the command line? -- If a wrapper happens, think about adding an option to cause the +- If a wrapper happens, think about adding an option to cause the ? resulting executable file to be executed immediately, thus allowing NASM source files to have #!... (probably silly) -- Multi-platform support? If so: definitely Alpha; possibly Java +- Multi-platform support? If so: definitely Alpha; possibly Java ? byte code; probably ARM/StrongARM; maybe Sparc; maybe Mips; maybe Vax. Perhaps Z80 and 6502, just for a laugh? + +- Consider a 'verbose' option that prints information about the resulting ? + object file onto stdout. + + |