The GNU assembler release claimed, which is the number at the end of what -Wa,--version
prints.
This compiler has no separate assembler, but build systems ask for one’s version all the same.
The Linux kernel’s scripts/as-version.sh runs $(CC) -Wa,--version and stops the build with
“unknown assembler invoked” unless the first line starts with GNU assembler and ends with a
version, which Kconfig then compares against the binutils release a feature needs. What does the
assembling is rucc-asm, so the claim is about which gas this is meant to stand in for.
2.46 by default, which is the binutils release that was current when GCC 16 came out, and GCC 16
is what GnucVersion claims by default. A build that claims an older GCC with
-fgnuc-version= will usually want an older assembler too, and -fgnu-as-version= says so.
spec/04-driver-and-cli.md section 4.9 has the rest.