| -*- text -*- |
| |
| * ld now supports zstd compressed debug sections. The new option |
| --compress-debug-sections=zstd compresses debug sections with zstd. |
| * Add --enable-default-compressed-debug-sections-algorithm={zlib,zstd} |
| that selects the default compression algorithm |
| for --enable-compressed-debug-sections. |
| |
| Changes in 2.39: |
| |
| * The ELF linker will now generate a warning message if the stack is made |
| executable. By default this warning is not issued if the user has |
| specifically requested an executable stack via the "-z execstack" |
| command line option, but the warning can be forced via the new |
| "--warn-execstack" option. Alternatively all warnings about creating |
| an executable stack can be suppressed via the "--no-warn-execstack" |
| option. |
| |
| In addition the ELF linker will also warn if it creates a memory resident |
| segment with all three of the Read, Write and eXecute permissions set, or |
| if it creates a thread local data segment with the eXecute permission set. |
| These warnings can be disabled via --no-warn-rwx-segments option and |
| re-enabled via the --warn-rwx-segments option. |
| |
| New configure options can also control these new features: |
| |
| --enable-warn-execstack=no |
| will disable the warnings about creating an executable stack. |
| |
| --enable-warn-execstack=yes |
| will make --warn-execstack enabled by default. |
| |
| --enable-warn-rwx-segments=no |
| will make --no-warn-rwx-segments enabled by default. |
| |
| --enable-default-execstack=no |
| will stop the creation of an executable stack simply because an input file |
| is missing a .note.GNU-stack section, even on architectures where this |
| behaviour is the default. |
| |
| * TYPE=<type> is now supported in an output section description to set the |
| section type value. |
| |
| * Remove (rudimentary) support for the x86-64 sub-architectures Intel L1OM and |
| Intel K1OM. |
| |
| * The ELF linker now supports a new --package-metadata option that allows |
| embedding a JSON payload in accordance to the Package Metadata specification. |
| If support for libjansson is enabled at build time, the linker will use it to |
| validate the input. This can be enabled with --enable-jansson. |
| For more details, see: https://systemd.io/ELF_PACKAGE_METADATA/ |
| |
| Changes in 2.38: |
| |
| * Add -z pack-relative-relocs/-z no pack-relative-relocs to x86 ELF |
| linker to pack relative relocations in the DT_RELR section. |
| |
| * Add support for the LoongArch architecture. |
| |
| * Add -z indirect-extern-access/-z noindirect-extern-access to x86 ELF |
| linker to control canonical function pointers and copy relocation. |
| |
| * Add --max-cache-size=SIZE to set the the maximum cache size to SIZE |
| bytes. |
| |
| Changes in 2.37: |
| |
| * arm-symbianelf support removed. |
| |
| * Add -z report-relative-reloc to x86 ELF linker to report dynamic |
| relative relocations. |
| |
| * Add -z start-stop-gc to disable special treatment of __start_*/__stop_* |
| references when --gc-sections. |
| |
| * Add -Bno-symbolic to cancel -Bsymbolic and -Bsymbolic-functions. |
| |
| Changes in 2.36: |
| |
| * Add libdep plugin, for linking dependencies of static libraries that |
| were recorded by ar in the __.LIBDEP archive member. |
| |
| * Add --error-handling-script=<NAME> command line option to allow a helper |
| script to be invoked when an undefined symbol or a missing library is |
| encountered. This option can be suppressed via the configure time |
| switch: --enable-error-handling-script=no. |
| |
| * Add -z lam-u48 to x86-64 ELF linker to generate LAM_U48 property. |
| |
| * Add -z lam-u57 to x86-64 ELF linker to enerate LAM_U57 property. |
| |
| * Add -z lam-u48-report=[none|warning|error] to report missing LAM_U48 |
| property. |
| |
| * Add -z lam-u57-report=[none|warning|error] to report missing LAM_U57 |
| property. |
| |
| * Add -z lam-report=[none|warning|error] to report missing LAM_U48 and |
| LAM_U57 properties. |
| |
| * Add -z x86-64-{baseline|v[234]} to the x86 ELF linker to mark |
| x86-64-{baseline|v[234]} ISA level as needed. |
| |
| * Add -z unique-symbol to avoid duplicated local symbol names. |
| |
| * The creation of PE format DLLs now defaults to using a more secure set of DLL |
| characteristics. |
| |
| * The linker now deduplicates the types in .ctf sections. The new |
| command-line option --ctf-share-types describes how to do this: |
| its default value, share-unconflicted, produces the most compact |
| output. |
| |
| * The linker now omits the "variable section" from .ctf sections by |
| default, saving space. This is almost certainly what you want |
| unless you are working on a project that has its own analogue |
| of symbol tables that are not reflected in the ELF symtabs. |
| |
| * Add support for the SHF_GNU_RETAIN ELF section flag. |
| This flag specifies that the section should not be garbage collected by the |
| linker. |
| |
| Changes in 2.35: |
| |
| * X86 NaCl target support is removed. |
| |
| * Add ELF linker command-line options, --export-dynamic-symbol and |
| --export-dynamic-symbol-list, to make symbols dynamic. |
| |
| * Add a configure option, --enable-textrel-check=[no|yes|warning|error], |
| to decide what ELF linker should do by default with DT_TEXTREL in an |
| executable or shared library. Default to yes for Linux/x86 targets. |
| |
| * The -Map=<filename> command line option has been extended so that if |
| <filename> is a directory then <filename>/<output-filename>.map will be |
| created. |
| |
| * Add a command-line option for ELF linker, --warn-textrel, to warn that |
| DT_TEXTREL is set in a position-independent executable or shared object. |
| |
| * Add command-line options --enable-non-contiguous-regions and |
| --enable-non-contiguous-regions-warnings. |
| |
| * Add command-line option --imagic for the pdp11-aout target to output format |
| IMAGIC (0411) for separate instruction and data spaces, and change the |
| default format option for pdp11-aout to be --omagic. |
| |
| * Relative pathnames in INPUT() and GROUP() directives in linker scripts are |
| searched relative to the directory of the linker script before other search |
| paths. |
| |
| * Add ELF linker command-line option `-z start-stop-visibility=...' to control |
| the visibility of synthetic `__start_SECNAME` and `__stop_SECNAME` symbols. |
| |
| * Add command-line option --dependency-file to write a Make-style dependency |
| file listing the input files consulted by the linker, like the files written |
| by the compiler's -M -MP options. |
| |
| Changes in 2.34: |
| |
| * The ld check for "PHDR segment not covered by LOAD segment" is more |
| effective, catching cases that were wrongly allowed by previous versions of |
| ld. If you see this error it is likely you are linking with a bad linker |
| script or the binary you are building is not intended to be loaded by a |
| dynamic loader. In the latter case --no-dynamic-linker is appropriate. |
| |
| * cr16c support removed. |
| |
| * Add support for z80-elf. |
| |
| * Add support for relocation of each byte or word of multibyte value to Z80 |
| targets. |
| |
| * Add support for Zilog eZ80 (both ADL and Z80 mode) and Zilog Z180 CPUs. |
| |
| Changes in 2.33: |
| |
| * Add command-line option --no-print-map-discarded. |
| |
| * The Cortex-A53 Erratum 843419 workaround now supports a choice of which |
| workaround to use. The option --fix-cortex-a53-843419 now takes an |
| optional argument --fix-cortex-a53-843419[=full|adr|adrp] which can be |
| used to force a particular workaround to be used. See --help for AArch64 |
| for more details. |
| |
| * Add target handlers for AArch64 for ELF GNU program properties. |
| |
| * Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_BTI in ELF GNU program |
| properties in the AArch64 ELF linker. |
| |
| * Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_PAC in ELF GNU program |
| properties in the AArch64 ELF linker. |
| |
| * Add -z force-bti for AArch64 to enable GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_BTI |
| on output while warning about missing GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_BTI |
| on inputs and use PLTs protected with BTI. |
| |
| * Add -z pac-plt for AArch64 to pick PAC enabled PLTs. |
| |
| Changes in 2.32: |
| |
| * Report property change in linker map file when merging GNU properties. |
| |
| * Add support for the C-SKY processor series. |
| |
| * -t now doesn't report members within archives, unless -t is given twice. |
| A single -t is now more useful when generating a list of files that should be |
| packaged for a linker bug report. For example: |
| gcc hello.c -save-temps -Wl,-t | xargs realpath | sort | uniq > files |
| tar cJf test.tar.xz `cat files` |
| |
| Changes in 2.31: |
| |
| * Speed up direct linking with DLLs for Cygwin and Mingw targets. |
| |
| * Add a configure option --enable-separate-code to decide whether |
| -z separate-code should be enabled in ELF linker by default. Default |
| to yes for Linux/x86 targets. Note that -z separate-code can increase |
| disk and memory size. |
| |
| Changes in 2.30: |
| |
| * Add -z separate-code to generate separate code PT_LOAD segment. |
| |
| * Add "-z undefs" command-line option as the inverse of the "-z defs" option. |
| |
| * Add -z globalaudit command-line option to force audit libraries to be run |
| for every dynamic object loaded by an executable - provided that the loader |
| supports this functionality. |
| |
| * Tighten linker script grammar around file name specifiers to prevent the use |
| of SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT and SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY on filenames. These would |
| previously be accepted but had no effect. |
| |
| * The EXCLUDE_FILE directive can now be placed within any SORT_* directive |
| within input section lists. |
| |
| Changes in 2.29: |
| |
| * Support for -z shstk in the x86 ELF linker to generate |
| GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_SHSTK in ELF GNU program properties. |
| |
| * Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_SHSTK in ELF GNU program |
| properties in the x86 ELF linker. |
| |
| * Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_IBT in ELF GNU program |
| properties in the x86 ELF linker. |
| |
| * Support for -z ibtplt in the x86 ELF linker to generate IBT-enabled |
| PLT. |
| |
| * Support for -z ibt in the x86 ELF linker to generate IBT-enabled |
| PLT as well as GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_IBT in ELF GNU program |
| properties. |
| |
| * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX. |
| |
| * Add support for ELF GNU program properties. |
| |
| * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor. |
| |
| * When configuring for arc*-*-linux* targets the default linker emulation will |
| change if --with-cpu=nps400 is used at configure time. |
| |
| * Improve assignment of LMAs to orphan sections in some edge cases where a |
| mixture of both AT>LMA_REGION and AT(LMA) are used. |
| |
| * Orphan sections placed after an empty section that has an AT(LMA) will now |
| take an load memory address starting from LMA. |
| |
| * Section groups can now be resolved (the group deleted and the group members |
| placed like normal sections) at partial link time either using the new linker |
| option --force-group-allocation or by placing FORCE_GROUP_ALLOCATION into the |
| linker script. |
| |
| Changes in 2.28: |
| |
| * The EXCLUDE_FILE linker script construct can now be applied outside of the |
| section list in order for the exclusions to apply over all input sections in |
| the list. |
| |
| * Add support for the RISC-V architecture. |
| |
| * The command-line option --no-eh-frame-hdr can now be used in ELF based |
| linkers to disable the automatic generation of .eh_frame_hdr sections. |
| |
| * Add --in-implib=<infile> to the ARM linker to enable specifying a set of |
| Secure Gateway veneers that must exist in the output import library specified |
| by --out-implib=<outfile> and the address they must have. As such, |
| --in-implib is only supported in combination with --cmse-implib. |
| |
| * Extended the --out-implib=<file> option, previously restricted to x86 PE |
| targets, to any ELF based target. This allows the generation of an import |
| library for an ELF executable, which can then be used by another application |
| to link against the executable. |
| |
| Changes in 2.27: |
| |
| * Add a configure option --enable-relro to decide whether -z relro should |
| be enabled in ELF linker by default. Default to yes for all Linux |
| targets except FRV, HPPA, IA64 and MIPS. Note that -z relro can increase |
| disk and memory size. |
| |
| * Support for -z noreloc-overflow in the x86-64 ELF linker to disable |
| relocation overflow check. |
| |
| * Add -z common/-z nocommon options for ELF targets to control whether to |
| convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type during a relocatable link. |
| |
| * Support for -z nodynamic-undefined-weak in the x86 ELF linker, which |
| avoids dynamic relocations against undefined weak symbols in executable. |
| |
| * The NOCROSSREFSTO command was added to the linker script language. |
| |
| * Add --no-apply-dynamic-relocs to the AArch64 linker to do not apply link-time |
| values for dynamic relocations. |
| |
| Changes in 2.26: |
| |
| * Add --fix-stm32l4xx-629360 to the ARM linker to enable a link-time |
| workaround for a bug in the bus matrix / memory controller for some of |
| the STM32 Cortex-M4 based products (STM32L4xx) |
| |
| * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,ld} to |
| decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default. |
| |
| * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures. |
| |
| * Experimental support for linker garbage collection (--gc-sections) |
| has been enabled for COFF and PE based targets. |
| |
| * New command-line option for ELF targets to compress DWARF debug |
| sections, --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi]. |
| |
| * New command-line option, --orphan-handling=[place|warn|error|discard], to |
| adjust how orphan sections are handled. The default is 'place' which gives |
| the current behaviour, 'warn' and 'error' issue a warning or error |
| respectively when orphan sections are found, and 'discard' will discard all |
| orphan sections. |
| |
| * Add support for LLVM plugin. |
| |
| * Add --print-memory-usage option to report memory blocks usage. |
| |
| * Add --require-defined option, it's like --undefined except the new symbol |
| must be defined by the end of the link. |
| |
| Changes in 2.25: |
| |
| * PE binaries now once again contain real timestamps by default. To disable |
| the inclusion of a timestamp in a PE binary, use the --no-insert-timestamp |
| command-line option. |
| |
| * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k. |
| |
| * Add support for the --build-id command-line option to COFF based targets. |
| |
| * x86/x86_64 pe-coff now supports the --build-id option. |
| |
| * Add support for the Andes NDS32. |
| |
| Changes in 2.24: |
| |
| * Add LOG2CEIL() builtin function to the linker script language |
| |
| * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor. |
| |
| * Add support for Altera Nios II. |
| |
| * Add support for the V850E3V5 architecture. |
| |
| * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor. |
| |
| * --enable-new-dtags no longer generates old dtags in addition to new dtags. |
| |
| * Remove linker support for MIPS ECOFF targets. |
| |
| * Add ALIGN_WITH_INPUT to the linker script language to force the alignment of |
| an output section to use the maximum alignment of all its input sections. |
| |
| Changes in 2.23: |
| |
| * Enable compressed debug section feature for x86/x86_64 pe-coff. |
| |
| * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64. |
| |
| * Added SORT_NONE to the linker script language to disable section sorting. |
| |
| * Add a linker-provided symbol when producing ELF output, '__ehdr_start' |
| to point to the ELF file header (and nearby program headers) in the |
| program's memory image. |
| |
| * Add support for S12X processor. |
| |
| * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture. |
| |
| * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture. |
| |
| * Add option -f FILE on AIX (for response file). |
| |
| * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture. |
| |
| * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture. |
| |
| Changes in 2.22: |
| |
| * --copy-dt-needed-entries is no longer enabled by default. Instead |
| --no-copy-dt-needed-entries is the default. |
| |
| * INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS has been added to the linker script language |
| to allow selection of input sections by section header section flags. |
| |
| * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures. |
| |
| * Added SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY to the linker script language to permit |
| sorting sections by numerical value of the GCC init_priority attribute |
| encoded in the section name. |
| |
| Changes in 2.21: |
| |
| * Linker script expression evaluation is somewhat more sane. This may |
| break scripts that depend on quirks of the old expression evaluation. |
| |
| * Turn off underscoring for x86_64 PE+-COFF targets. For old behavior the |
| option --enable-leading-mingw64-underscores can be used on configure of |
| bfd. |
| |
| * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family. |
| |
| * --add-needed renamed to --copy-dt-needed-entries in order to avoid confusion |
| with --as-needed option. |
| |
| * Extend .def file syntax by '== <ID>' for imports and exports. This allows |
| to alias the import/export table name written in PE image. |
| |
| * Add --exclude-all-symbols option to PE based linkers. This prevents all |
| symbols from automatically being exported. |
| |
| * Add support for the Renesas RX processor. |
| |
| * Add support for alpha-vms target. |
| |
| Changes in 2.20: |
| |
| * GNU/Linux targets now support the STB_GNU_UNIQUE symbol binding. This is a |
| GNU extension to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings. The binding will |
| be passed on to the dynamic linker which will make sure that in the entire |
| process there is just one symbol with the given name and type in use. |
| |
| * PE targets now support a GNU extension to allow the alignment of common |
| common symbols to be specified. This support uses custom options in |
| the .drectve section, which will be disregarded by the native tools. |
| |
| * PE targets now add primitive support for ELF version scripts; symbols |
| are not versioned, but the local and global symbol visibility directives |
| are respected when filtering symbols in auto-export mode. |
| |
| * New option --no-export-dynamic to undo the effect of the -E and |
| --export-dynamic options. |
| |
| * ELF: --warn-alternate-em option to warn if an object has alternate |
| ELF machine code. |
| |
| * New script function REGION_ALIAS to add alias names to memory regions. |
| |
| * PE targets no longer make use of the long section names PE extension to |
| the COFF format when generating executable images, by default. The old |
| (slightly non-conformant) behaviour can still be invoked by using the |
| new '--enable-long-section-names' command-line option. It is also enabled |
| automatically in the presence of un-stripped debug information, as GDB |
| needs to be able to find the debug info sections by their full names. |
| |
| * For GNU/Linux systems the linker will now avoid processing any relocations |
| made against symbols of the STT_GNU_IFUNC type and instead emit them into |
| the resulting binary for processing by the loader. |
| |
| * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined |
| symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries. In the |
| latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED |
| entry of one of the libraries already linked. |
| |
| * Add a new command-line option, -Ttext-segment ADDR, for ELF targets |
| to set the address of the first byte of the text segment. |
| |
| * Add support for Sunplus score architecture. |
| |
| * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to ld for PE targets to |
| allow fallback to old import table generation with null element prefix. |
| |
| * Windows PE systems now support a new --exclude-modules-for-implib option, |
| allowing users to partition object files and archive members between a DLL |
| and its associated import library as they are generated during linking. |
| |
| * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture. |
| |
| * Add CR16 ELF --embedded-relocs (used to embedded relocations into binaries |
| for Embedded-PIC code) option. |
| |
| * Add to the PE/PE+ targets the support of two different kinds of |
| pseudo-relocations. They can be selected by the switches |
| --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v1 and --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v2. |
| For the switch --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc it uses for 32-bit |
| runtime pseudo relocation version one, for 64-bit the version two. |
| |
| Changes in 2.19: |
| |
| * Linker scripts support a new INSERT command that makes it easier to |
| augment the default script. |
| |
| * Linker script input section filespecs may now specify a file within an |
| archive by writing "archive:file". |
| |
| * The --sort-common switch now has an optional argument which specifies the |
| direction of sorting. |
| |
| * The M68K linker now supports multiple GOT generation schemes controlled via |
| the --got=<type> command-line option. |
| |
| * The ARM EABI linker will now generate stubs for function calls to symbols |
| that are too far away. The placement of the stubs is controlled by a new |
| linker command-line option: --stub-group-size=N. |
| |
| Changes in 2.18: |
| |
| * Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public |
| License. |
| |
| * ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier |
| embedded in a note section. |
| |
| * Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target. |
| |
| * -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo, |
| without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so. |
| |
| * Add a new command-line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE' |
| which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker |
| script. |
| |
| * ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++ |
| operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data, |
| builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the |
| dynamic list. |
| |
| * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target. |
| |
| * Add support for Score target. |
| |
| * ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols |
| whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the |
| shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the |
| symbol table in the executable. |
| |
| * The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from |
| being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as |
| the previous output section in the same region. This is a more useful |
| default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA |
| differing from the VMA for some sections. |
| |
| * New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge |
| collection. |
| |
| * ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current |
| VFP11 coprocessors. |
| |
| Changes in 2.17: |
| |
| * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems. |
| |
| * Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order. |
| Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before |
| searching the default directories, rather than vice versa. |
| Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf. |
| |
| * PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files |
| passed directly to ld. |
| |
| * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added. |
| |
| * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra |
| switches can be read from <file>. |
| |
| Changes in 2.16: |
| |
| * Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF |
| specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option. |
| |
| * New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag |
| for input files listed inside of it. |
| |
| * A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the |
| default sysroot location. It only applies to toolchains that were |
| configured using --with-sysroot. |
| |
| * New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information |
| about a specified memory region. |
| |
| * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech. |
| |
| * Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to |
| override the base address for a segment from the command-line. |
| |
| * ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared |
| object. |
| |
| * Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script |
| language to permit sorting sections by section name or section |
| maximum alignment. |
| |
| * Added a new linker command-line switch, --sort-section name|alignment, |
| to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment. |
| |
| * ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag |
| should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags. |
| |
| * Support for the crx-elf target added. |
| |
| * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added. |
| |
| * A new linker command-line switch has been added which allows the hash table |
| size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument. This switch |
| is --hash-size=<NUMBER>. Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is |
| used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set |
| to 1021. |
| |
| * Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols |
| that are defined in each section. This uses about 40% more memory for |
| symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm. You can use the new |
| --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option |
| might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs. |
| |
| Changes in 2.15: |
| |
| * ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should |
| be added only when a shared library is referenced. |
| |
| * PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual |
| addresses greater than 2 gigabytes. |
| |
| * DWARF 2 support for i386pe added. |
| |
| * The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that |
| is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used. |
| |
| * The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for |
| Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. |
| |
| * cr16c support added by NSC. |
| |
| * m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas. |
| |
| * Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols. The switch |
| --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it |
| should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to |
| make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors. |
| |
| Changes in 2.14: |
| |
| * Added support for Xtensa architecture. |
| |
| * Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for |
| linking against a target filesystem image. |
| |
| * Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre |
| 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary |
| file format. |
| |
| * Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option. |
| |
| * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of |
| DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal. |
| |
| * Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for |
| LIB_PATH. |
| |
| * ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson. |
| |
| * IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov. |
| |
| Changes in 2.13: |
| |
| * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400 |
| and FR500 included. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.13: |
| |
| * DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.12: |
| |
| * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson. |
| |
| * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores. |
| |
| * Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables |
| production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in |
| non-sharable applications. |
| |
| * Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic |
| relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker |
| can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache. |
| |
| * Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.11: |
| |
| * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs. |
| |
| * Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by |
| having the compiler generate the information in sections called |
| .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The |
| linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info |
| section. |
| |
| * The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or |
| DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it. |
| |
| * TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall. |
| |
| * Added command-line switch --section-start to set the start address of any |
| specified section. |
| |
| * Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables, |
| enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need |
| this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform |
| symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents |
| (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.) |
| |
| * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality). |
| |
| * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series). |
| |
| * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.10: |
| |
| * Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of |
| sections into regions. |
| |
| * Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections. |
| It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are |
| arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf, |
| mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf. |
| Others will ignore the option. |
| |
| * Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file |
| name or section name. |
| |
| * Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u |
| command-line option. |
| |
| * Added ASSERT to the linker script language. |
| |
| * Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over |
| wildcard file names. |
| |
| * Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only |
| affects ELF shared library generation). |
| |
| * The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name. |
| |
| * Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a |
| shared library. |
| |
| * The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when |
| using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old |
| behaviour. |
| |
| * Added --demangle and --no-demangle options. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.9: |
| |
| * Added SQUAD to the linker script language. |
| |
| * New option --no-warn-mismatch. |
| |
| * The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that |
| are not placed in a specific memory region are placed. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.8: |
| |
| * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section |
| names. |
| |
| * The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF. |
| |
| * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language. |
| |
| * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language. |
| |
| * MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language. |
| |
| * The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language. |
| |
| * New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section |
| changes due to alignment of an input section. |
| |
| * New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.7: |
| |
| * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table. |
| |
| * New option --wrap SYMBOL. |
| |
| * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive. |
| |
| * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script |
| are not included in the output file. |
| |
| * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses |
| the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging |
| information generated. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.6: |
| |
| * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true |
| of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols |
| __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the |
| beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc. |
| |
| Addendum: Current versions of the linker (at least for version 2.18 onwards |
| and possibly much earlier as well) place two restrictions on this feature: The |
| symbols are only implemented for orphaned sections, not for explicitly placed |
| sections and they are PROVIDEd rather than being defined. |
| |
| * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the |
| contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is |
| not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc. |
| |
| * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input |
| file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of |
| the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into |
| the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link. This is used by |
| glibc. |
| |
| * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file. |
| |
| * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can |
| also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker, |
| will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e |
| nor the -r option was used. |
| |
| * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be |
| searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the |
| -L options. |
| |
| * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and |
| enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will |
| only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will |
| prevent this optimization. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.5: |
| |
| * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can |
| not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to |
| generate shared libraries. |
| |
| * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386 |
| (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be |
| used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well |
| tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for |
| Solaris again. |
| |
| * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against |
| Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries. |
| |
| * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new |
| ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far, |
| this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix |
| 5), and HPPA ELF targets. |
| |
| * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to |
| support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive. |
| This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ). |
| |
| * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize |
| it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script |
| file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the |
| default linker script. |
| |
| * The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per |
| undefined symbol, rather than once per reference. |
| |
| * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to |
| use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So |
| far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets. |
| |
| * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V |
| behaviour is available via --verbose. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.4: |
| |
| * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff |
| formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time |
| and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than |
| before for formats not converted yet. |
| |
| * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means |
| oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument |
| separators. |
| |
| * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.) |
| |
| * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie. |
| |
| * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared |
| libraries are not yet supported). |
| |
| * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well. |
| |
| * The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just |
| forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when |
| statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.3: |
| |
| * Weak symbols are now supported. |
| |
| * ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on |
| UnixWare and Solaris. |
| |
| * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only). |
| |
| Changes in version 2.2: |
| |
| * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string |
| table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input |
| files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical |
| static symbols) should be much smaller. |
| |
| Changes in version 2.1: |
| |
| * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented. |
| |
| * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the |
| other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. |
| |
| |
| Copyright (C) 2012-2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc. |
| |
| Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, |
| are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright |
| notice and this notice are preserved. |
| |
| Local variables: |
| fill-column: 79 |
| End: |