3 Changes since version 2.7:
5 * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section
8 Changes since version 2.6:
10 * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table.
12 * New option --wrap SYMBOL.
14 * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive.
16 * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script
17 are not included in the output file.
19 * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses
20 the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging
21 information generated.
23 Changes since version 2.5:
25 * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
26 of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
27 __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
28 beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc.
30 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
31 contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
32 not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc.
34 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
35 file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
36 the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into
37 the output file, unless doing a relocateable or shared link. This is used by
40 * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
42 * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can
43 also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker,
44 will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e
45 nor the -r option was used.
47 * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be
48 searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the
51 * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
52 enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
53 only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will
54 prevent this optimization.
56 Changes since version 2.4:
58 * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can
59 not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
60 generate shared libaries.
62 * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
63 (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
64 used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well
65 tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for
68 * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
69 Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
71 * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new
72 ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far,
73 this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
74 5), and HPPA ELF targets.
76 * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
77 support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
78 This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
80 * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
81 it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
82 file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
83 default linker script.
85 * The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per
86 undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
88 * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to
89 use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So
90 far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
92 * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V
93 behaviour is available via --verbose.
95 Changes since version 2.3:
97 * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff
98 formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
99 and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
100 before for formats not converted yet.
102 * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means
103 oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
106 * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.)
108 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
110 * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
111 libraries are not yet supported).
113 * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
115 * The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
116 forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when
117 statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
119 Changes since version 2.2:
121 * Weak symbols are now supported.
123 * ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on
124 UnixWare and Solaris.
126 * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
128 Changes since version 2.1:
130 * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
131 table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input
132 files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
133 static symbols) should be much smaller.
135 Changes since version 2.0:
137 * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
139 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
140 other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.