It works in older versions. The version you used is buggy. There is no reason not to blacklist that broken version unless someone can prove that the new behaviour is correct according to any spec.
That's plain wrong, sorry. I also used 2.17 and the error is the same. So the two latest stable versions of binutils don't work with that code. You won't get that code to translate unless you use an experimental version of binutils (snapshot).
There is nothing "experimental" about binutils mainline.
So either we get this problem solved differently or I'll have to go ahead and check the patch in. Relying on experimental toolchains is not an option. Even if your toolchain provider uses experimental binutils versions, that's nothing we should enforce.
Not if there's a sane workaround, no.
Segher