| 1 | -*- text -*-
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| 2 |
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| 3 | * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
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| 4 |
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| 5 | * Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for
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| 6 | linking against a target filesystem image.
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| 7 |
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| 8 | * Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre
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| 9 | 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary
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| 10 | file format.
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| 11 |
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| 12 | * Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option.
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| 13 |
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| 14 | * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
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| 15 | DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
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| 16 |
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| 17 | * Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for
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| 18 | LIB_PATH.
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| 19 |
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| 20 | * ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson.
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| 21 |
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| 22 | * IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov.
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| 23 |
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| 24 | Changes in 2.13:
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| 25 |
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| 26 | * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
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| 27 | and FR500 included.
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| 28 |
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| 29 | Changes in version 2.13:
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| 30 |
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| 31 | * DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas.
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| 32 |
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| 33 | Changes in version 2.12:
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| 34 |
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| 35 | * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
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| 36 |
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| 37 | * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
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| 38 |
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| 39 | * Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables
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| 40 | production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in
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| 41 | non-sharable applications.
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| 42 |
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| 43 | * Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic
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| 44 | relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker
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| 45 | can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache.
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| 46 |
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| 47 | * Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek.
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| 48 |
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| 49 | Changes in version 2.11:
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| 50 |
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| 51 | * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
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| 52 |
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| 53 | * Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by
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| 54 | having the compiler generate the information in sections called
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| 55 | .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The
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| 56 | linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info
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| 57 | section.
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| 58 |
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| 59 | * The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or
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| 60 | DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it.
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| 61 |
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| 62 | * TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall.
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| 63 |
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| 64 | * Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any
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| 65 | specified section.
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| 66 |
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| 67 | * Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables,
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| 68 | enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need
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| 69 | this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform
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| 70 | symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents
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| 71 | (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.)
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| 72 |
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| 73 | * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality).
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| 74 |
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| 75 | * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
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| 76 |
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| 77 | * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
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| 78 |
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| 79 | Changes in version 2.10:
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| 80 |
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| 81 | * Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of
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| 82 | sections into regions.
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| 83 |
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| 84 | * Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections.
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| 85 | It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are
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| 86 | arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf,
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| 87 | mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf.
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| 88 | Others will ignore the option.
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| 89 |
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| 90 | * Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file
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| 91 | name or section name.
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| 92 |
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| 93 | * Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u
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| 94 | command-line option.
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| 95 |
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| 96 | * Added ASSERT to the linker script language.
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| 97 |
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| 98 | * Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over
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| 99 | wildcard file names.
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| 100 |
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| 101 | * Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only
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| 102 | affects ELF shared library generation).
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| 103 |
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| 104 | * The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name.
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| 105 |
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| 106 | * Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a
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| 107 | shared library.
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| 108 |
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| 109 | * The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when
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| 110 | using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old
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| 111 | behaviour.
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| 112 |
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| 113 | * Added --demangle and --no-demangle options.
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| 114 |
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| 115 | Changes in version 2.9:
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| 116 |
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| 117 | * Added SQUAD to the linker script language.
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| 118 |
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| 119 | * New option --no-warn-mismatch.
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| 120 |
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| 121 | * The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that
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| 122 | are not placed in a specific memory region are placed.
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| 123 |
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| 124 | Changes in version 2.8:
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| 125 |
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| 126 | * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section
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| 127 | names.
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| 128 |
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| 129 | * The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF.
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| 130 |
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| 131 | * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language.
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| 132 |
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| 133 | * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language.
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| 134 |
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| 135 | * MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language.
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| 136 |
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| 137 | * The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language.
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| 138 |
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| 139 | * New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section
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| 140 | changes due to alignment of an input section.
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| 141 |
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| 142 | * New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f.
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| 143 |
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| 144 | Changes in version 2.7:
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| 145 |
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| 146 | * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table.
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| 147 |
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| 148 | * New option --wrap SYMBOL.
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| 149 |
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| 150 | * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive.
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| 151 |
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| 152 | * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script
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| 153 | are not included in the output file.
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| 154 |
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| 155 | * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses
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| 156 | the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging
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| 157 | information generated.
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| 158 |
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| 159 | Changes in version 2.6:
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| 160 |
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| 161 | * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
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| 162 | of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
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| 163 | __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
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| 164 | beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc.
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| 165 |
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| 166 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
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| 167 | contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
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| 168 | not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc.
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| 169 |
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| 170 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
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| 171 | file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
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| 172 | the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into
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| 173 | the output file, unless doing a relocateable or shared link. This is used by
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| 174 | glibc.
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| 175 |
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| 176 | * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
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| 177 |
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| 178 | * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can
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| 179 | also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker,
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| 180 | will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e
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| 181 | nor the -r option was used.
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| 182 |
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| 183 | * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be
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| 184 | searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the
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| 185 | -L options.
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| 186 |
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| 187 | * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
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| 188 | enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
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| 189 | only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will
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| 190 | prevent this optimization.
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| 191 |
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| 192 | Changes in version 2.5:
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| 193 |
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| 194 | * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can
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| 195 | not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
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| 196 | generate shared libaries.
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| 197 |
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| 198 | * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
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| 199 | (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
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| 200 | used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well
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| 201 | tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for
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| 202 | Solaris again.
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| 203 |
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| 204 | * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
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| 205 | Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
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| 206 |
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| 207 | * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new
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| 208 | ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far,
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| 209 | this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
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| 210 | 5), and HPPA ELF targets.
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| 211 |
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| 212 | * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
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| 213 | support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
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| 214 | This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
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| 215 |
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| 216 | * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
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| 217 | it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
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| 218 | file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
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| 219 | default linker script.
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| 220 |
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| 221 | * The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per
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| 222 | undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
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| 223 |
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| 224 | * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to
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| 225 | use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So
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| 226 | far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
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| 227 |
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| 228 | * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V
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| 229 | behaviour is available via --verbose.
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| 230 |
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| 231 | Changes in version 2.4:
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| 232 |
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| 233 | * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff
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| 234 | formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
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| 235 | and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
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| 236 | before for formats not converted yet.
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| 237 |
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| 238 | * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means
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| 239 | oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
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| 240 | separators.
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| 241 |
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| 242 | * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.)
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| 243 |
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| 244 | * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
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| 245 |
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| 246 | * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
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| 247 | libraries are not yet supported).
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| 248 |
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| 249 | * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
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| 250 |
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| 251 | * The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
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| 252 | forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when
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| 253 | statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
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| 254 |
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| 255 | Changes in version 2.3:
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| 256 |
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| 257 | * Weak symbols are now supported.
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| 258 |
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| 259 | * ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on
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| 260 | UnixWare and Solaris.
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| 261 |
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| 262 | * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
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| 263 |
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| 264 | Changes in version 2.2:
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| 265 |
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| 266 | * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
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| 267 | table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input
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| 268 | files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
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| 269 | static symbols) should be much smaller.
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| 270 |
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| 271 | Changes in version 2.1:
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| 272 |
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| 273 | * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
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| 274 |
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| 275 | * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
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| 276 | other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.
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| 277 |
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| 278 | |
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| 279 |
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| 280 | Local variables:
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| 281 | fill-column: 79
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| 282 | End:
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