diff --git a/gcc/java/ChangeLog b/gcc/java/ChangeLog
index 0c73353188d..81fa8a52d55 100644
--- a/gcc/java/ChangeLog
+++ b/gcc/java/ChangeLog
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 2004-03-19  Per Bothner  <per@bothner.com>
 
+	* gcj.texi (Code Generation):  Document new flags and assert defaults.
+
 	* class.c (assume_compiled_node_struct):  Rename type to
 	class_flag_node_struct, as it is now also used for enable_assertions.
 	Rename assume_compiled_node typedef.  Rename excludep field to value.
diff --git a/gcc/java/gcj.texi b/gcc/java/gcj.texi
index 21c12ee6cc9..26edf6909cc 100644
--- a/gcc/java/gcj.texi
+++ b/gcc/java/gcj.texi
@@ -431,6 +431,27 @@ to initialize static classes upon their first use (this optimization
 isn't carried out if @code{-C} was specified.) When compiling to native
 code, @code{-fno-optimize-static-class-initialization} will turn this
 optimization off, regardless of the optimization level in use.
+
+@item --disable-assertions[=@var{class-or-package}]
+Don't include code for checking assertions in the compiled code.
+If @code{=@var{class-or-package}} is missing disables assertion code
+generation for all classes, unless overrideen by a more
+specific @code{--enable-assertions} flag.
+If @var{class-or-package} is a class name, only disables generating
+assertion checks within the named class or its inner classes.
+If @var{class-or-package} is a package name, disables generating
+assertion checks within the named package or a subpackage.
+
+By default, assertions are enabled when generating class files
+or when not optimizaing, and disabled when generating optimized binaries.
+
+@item --enable-assertions[=@var{class-or-package}]
+Generates code to check assertions.  The option is perhaps misnamed,
+as you still need to turn on assertion checking at run-time,
+and we don't support any easy way to do that.
+So this flag isn't very useful yet, except to partially override
+@code{--disable-assertions}.
+
 @end table