| -*- text -*- | |
| 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. | |
| Changes in 2.33: | |
| * 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) 2012-2019 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: |