HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 Release Notes

Programming
IPF Assembler
Chapter 7
96
IPF Assembler
The IPF assembler, also known as the IA-64 assembler, is used to assemble source files
written according to the IPF Assembly Language Specification.
Summary of Change
The HP-UX 11i v1.6 release of the IPF assembler contains a number of enhancements.
The most significant enhancement is the hazard checking logic and support for the
pred.rel assembler directive.
Details of Change
The fixes in HP-UX 11i v1.6 are:
• Explicit bundling not being respected in certain cases:
In certain cases, especially when using explicit but incomplete bundling the
assembler was creating a bundle with a template other than the one explicitly
requested by the user by using the template directives. The root cause is related to
doing bundle fixes to convert any intra-bundle stops to inter-bundle stops. If
applicable and possible, this assures that any instruction that must be the first in an
instruction group and that’s in a subsequent bundle will, in fact, be the first in the
instruction group and not follow nops that are placed after the intra bundle stops in
the preceding bundle. The fix selects the best template from a set of possible
templates, without taking into account the fact that a explicit template directive is in
effect.
• X-format unwind records:
The emission of the X-format unwind records was found incorrect when the unwind
directive contained the register rp or r0. The assembler mistakenly created a record
for rp when r0 was specified and failed to create a record for rp when rp was
specified. Also, the assembler did not accept the @psp and @priunat
pseudo-registers.
• Expression evaluation was unsigned by default:
The assembler in cases treated a negative number as a large unsigned number, and
as such rejected the immediate as too large or the displacement as too distant to be
encoded in the instruction.
• Temporary symbols in object file:
Non-scope restricted temporary symbols were emitted to the object file by mistake.
The enhancements in HP-UX 11i v1.6 are:
• Improved support for opaque and stub symbols:
Support for opaque symbols and stub symbols is improved by allowing the export
class to be set for those symbols.
• Allow predication for alloc instructions:
To bring the assembler up to date with respect to Intel’s SDM version 1.1, the alloc
instruction can now be predicated.