Fix a (one shot small) leak in language.c
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / ld / NEWS
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252b5132 1-*- text -*-
97a232d7 2
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3* Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
4
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5Changes in 2.31:
6
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7* Speed up direct linking with DLLs for Cygwin and Mingw targets.
8
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9* Add a configure option --enable-separate-code to decide whether
10 -z separate-code should be enabled in ELF linker by default. Default
11 to yes for Linux/x86 targets. Note that -z separate-code can increase
12 disk and memory size.
13
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14Changes in 2.30:
15
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16* Add -z separate-code to generate separate code PT_LOAD segment.
17
a05a5b64 18* Add "-z undefs" command-line option as the inverse of the "-z defs" option.
97a232d7 19
a05a5b64 20* Add -z globalaudit command-line option to force audit libraries to be run
93ab9c0d 21 for every dynamic object loaded by an executable - provided that the loader
6c19b93b 22 supports this functionality.
7feec526 23
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24* Tighten linker script grammar around file name specifiers to prevent the use
25 of SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT and SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY on filenames. These would
26 previously be accepted but had no effect.
27
28* The EXCLUDE_FILE directive can now be placed within any SORT_* directive
29 within input section lists.
30
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31Changes in 2.29:
32
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33* Support for -z shstk in the x86 ELF linker to generate
34 GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_SHSTK in ELF GNU program properties.
35
36* Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_SHSTK in ELF GNU program
37 properties in the x86 ELF linker.
38
ee2fdd6f 39* Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_IBT in ELF GNU program
48580982 40 properties in the x86 ELF linker.
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41
42* Support for -z ibtplt in the x86 ELF linker to generate IBT-enabled
43 PLT.
44
45* Support for -z ibt in the x86 ELF linker to generate IBT-enabled
46 PLT as well as GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_IBT in ELF GNU program
47 properties.
48
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49* Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX.
50
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51* Add support for ELF GNU program properties.
52
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53* Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
54
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55* When configuring for arc*-*-linux* targets the default linker emulation will
56 change if --with-cpu=nps400 is used at configure time.
57
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58* Improve assignment of LMAs to orphan sections in some edge cases where a
59 mixture of both AT>LMA_REGION and AT(LMA) are used.
60
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61* Orphan sections placed after an empty section that has an AT(LMA) will now
62 take an load memory address starting from LMA.
63
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64* Section groups can now be resolved (the group deleted and the group members
65 placed like normal sections) at partial link time either using the new linker
66 option --force-group-allocation or by placing FORCE_GROUP_ALLOCATION into the
67 linker script.
68
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69Changes in 2.28:
70
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71* The EXCLUDE_FILE linker script construct can now be applied outside of the
72 section list in order for the exclusions to apply over all input sections in
73 the list.
74
e23eba97 75* Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
76359541 76
a05a5b64 77* The command-line option --no-eh-frame-hdr can now be used in ELF based
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78 linkers to disable the automatic generation of .eh_frame_hdr sections.
79
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80* Add --in-implib=<infile> to the ARM linker to enable specifying a set of
81 Secure Gateway veneers that must exist in the output import library specified
82 by --out-implib=<outfile> and the address they must have. As such,
83 --in-implib is only supported in combination with --cmse-implib.
84
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85* Extended the --out-implib=<file> option, previously restricted to x86 PE
86 targets, to any ELF based target. This allows the generation of an import
87 library for an ELF executable, which can then be used by another application
88 to link against the executable.
89
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90Changes in 2.27:
91
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92* Add a configure option --enable-relro to decide whether -z relro should
93 be enabled in ELF linker by default. Default to yes for all Linux
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94 targets except FRV, HPPA, IA64 and MIPS. Note that -z relro can increase
95 disk and memory size.
647e4d46 96
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97* Support for -z noreloc-overflow in the x86-64 ELF linker to disable
98 relocation overflow check.
99
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100* Add -z common/-z nocommon options for ELF targets to control whether to
101 convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type during a relocatable link.
102
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103* Support for -z nodynamic-undefined-weak in the x86 ELF linker, which
104 avoids dynamic relocations against undefined weak symbols in executable.
105
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106* The NOCROSSREFSTO command was added to the linker script language.
107
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108* Add --no-apply-dynamic-relocs to the AArch64 linker to do not apply link-time
109 values for dynamic relocations.
110
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111Changes in 2.26:
112
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113* Add --fix-stm32l4xx-629360 to the ARM linker to enable a link-time
114 workaround for a bug in the bus matrix / memory controller for some of
115 the STM32 Cortex-M4 based products (STM32L4xx)
81c23f82 116
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117* Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,ld} to
118 decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
119
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120* Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
121
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122* Experimental support for linker garbage collection (--gc-sections)
123 has been enabled for COFF and PE based targets.
124
a05a5b64 125* New command-line option for ELF targets to compress DWARF debug
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126 sections, --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi].
127
a05a5b64 128* New command-line option, --orphan-handling=[place|warn|error|discard], to
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129 adjust how orphan sections are handled. The default is 'place' which gives
130 the current behaviour, 'warn' and 'error' issue a warning or error
131 respectively when orphan sections are found, and 'discard' will discard all
132 orphan sections.
3ea60775 133
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134* Add support for LLVM plugin.
135
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136* Add --print-memory-usage option to report memory blocks usage.
137
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138* Add --require-defined option, it's like --undefined except the new symbol
139 must be defined by the end of the link.
140
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141Changes in 2.25:
142
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143* PE binaries now once again contain real timestamps by default. To disable
144 the inclusion of a timestamp in a PE binary, use the --no-insert-timestamp
a05a5b64 145 command-line option.
eeb14e5a 146
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147* Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
148
a05a5b64 149* Add support for the --build-id command-line option to COFF based targets.
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150
151* x86/x86_64 pe-coff now supports the --build-id option.
152
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153* Add support for the Andes NDS32.
154
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155Changes in 2.24:
156
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157* Add LOG2CEIL() builtin function to the linker script language
158
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159* Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
160
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161* Add support for Altera Nios II.
162
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163* Add support for the V850E3V5 architecture.
164
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165* Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
166
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167* --enable-new-dtags no longer generates old dtags in addition to new dtags.
168
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169* Remove linker support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
170
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171* Add ALIGN_WITH_INPUT to the linker script language to force the alignment of
172 an output section to use the maximum alignment of all its input sections.
173
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174Changes in 2.23:
175
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176* Enable compressed debug section feature for x86/x86_64 pe-coff.
177
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178* Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
179
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180* Added SORT_NONE to the linker script language to disable section sorting.
181
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182* Add a linker-provided symbol when producing ELF output, '__ehdr_start'
183 to point to the ELF file header (and nearby program headers) in the
184 program's memory image.
185
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186* Add support for S12X processor.
187
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188* Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
189
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190* Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
191
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192* Add option -f FILE on AIX (for response file).
193
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194* Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
195
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196* Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
197
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198Changes in 2.22:
199
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200* --copy-dt-needed-entries is no longer enabled by default. Instead
201 --no-copy-dt-needed-entries is the default.
202
ae17ab41 203* INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS has been added to the linker script language
cfb8c092 204 to allow selection of input sections by section header section flags.
ae17ab41 205
69f56ae1 206* Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
90b3661c 207
02ecc8e9 208* Added SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY to the linker script language to permit
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209 sorting sections by numerical value of the GCC init_priority attribute
210 encoded in the section name.
02ecc8e9 211
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212Changes in 2.21:
213
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214* Linker script expression evaluation is somewhat more sane. This may
215 break scripts that depend on quirks of the old expression evaluation.
216
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217* Turn off underscoring for x86_64 PE+-COFF targets. For old behavior the
218 option --enable-leading-mingw64-underscores can be used on configure of
219 bfd.
220
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221* Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
222
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223* --add-needed renamed to --copy-dt-needed-entries in order to avoid confusion
224 with --as-needed option.
225
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226* Extend .def file syntax by '== <ID>' for imports and exports. This allows
227 to alias the import/export table name written in PE image.
228
a72173de 229* Add --exclude-all-symbols option to PE based linkers. This prevents all
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230 symbols from automatically being exported.
231
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232* Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
233
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234* Add support for alpha-vms target.
235
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236Changes in 2.20:
237
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238* GNU/Linux targets now support the STB_GNU_UNIQUE symbol binding. This is a
239 GNU extension to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings. The binding will
240 be passed on to the dynamic linker which will make sure that in the entire
241 process there is just one symbol with the given name and type in use.
ce11ba6c 242
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243* PE targets now support a GNU extension to allow the alignment of common
244 common symbols to be specified. This support uses custom options in
245 the .drectve section, which will be disregarded by the native tools.
246
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247* PE targets now add primitive support for ELF version scripts; symbols
248 are not versioned, but the local and global symbol visibility directives
249 are respected when filtering symbols in auto-export mode.
250
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251* New option --no-export-dynamic to undo the effect of the -E and
252 --export-dynamic options.
253
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254* ELF: --warn-alternate-em option to warn if an object has alternate
255 ELF machine code.
256
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257* New script function REGION_ALIAS to add alias names to memory regions.
258
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259* PE targets no longer make use of the long section names PE extension to
260 the COFF format when generating executable images, by default. The old
261 (slightly non-conformant) behaviour can still be invoked by using the
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262 new '--enable-long-section-names' command-line option. It is also enabled
263 automatically in the presence of un-stripped debug information, as GDB
264 needs to be able to find the debug info sections by their full names.
88183869 265
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266* For GNU/Linux systems the linker will now avoid processing any relocations
267 made against symbols of the STT_GNU_IFUNC type and instead emit them into
268 the resulting binary for processing by the loader.
269
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270* --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
271 symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries. In the
272 latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
273 entry of one of the libraries already linked.
274
a05a5b64 275* Add a new command-line option, -Ttext-segment ADDR, for ELF targets
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276 to set the address of the first byte of the text segment.
277
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278* Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
279
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280* Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to ld for PE targets to
281 allow fallback to old import table generation with null element prefix.
282
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283* Windows PE systems now support a new --exclude-modules-for-implib option,
284 allowing users to partition object files and archive members between a DLL
285 and its associated import library as they are generated during linking.
286
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287* Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
288
62655c7b 289* Add CR16 ELF --embedded-relocs (used to embedded relocations into binaries
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290 for Embedded-PIC code) option.
291
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292* Add to the PE/PE+ targets the support of two different kinds of
293 pseudo-relocations. They can be selected by the switches
294 --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v1 and --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v2.
295 For the switch --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc it uses for 32-bit
296 runtime pseudo relocation version one, for 64-bit the version two.
297
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298Changes in 2.19:
299
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300* Linker scripts support a new INSERT command that makes it easier to
301 augment the default script.
302
967928e9 303* Linker script input section filespecs may now specify a file within an
66c103b7 304 archive by writing "archive:file".
967928e9 305
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306* The --sort-common switch now has an optional argument which specifies the
307 direction of sorting.
308
7fb9f789 309* The M68K linker now supports multiple GOT generation schemes controlled via
a05a5b64 310 the --got=<type> command-line option.
7fb9f789 311
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312* The ARM EABI linker will now generate stubs for function calls to symbols
313 that are too far away. The placement of the stubs is controlled by a new
a05a5b64 314 linker command-line option: --stub-group-size=N.
726150b7 315
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316Changes in 2.18:
317
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318* Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public
319 License.
320
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321* ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier
322 embedded in a note section.
323
3d3d428f 324* Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target.
a19bcec6 325
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326* -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo,
327 without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so.
328
a05a5b64 329* Add a new command-line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE'
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330 which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker
331 script.
332
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333* ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++
334 operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data,
335 builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the
336 dynamic list.
337
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338* Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
339
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340* Add support for Score target.
341
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342* ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols
343 whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the
344 shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the
345 symbol table in the executable.
346
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347* The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from
348 being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as
349 the previous output section in the same region. This is a more useful
350 default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA
351 differing from the VMA for some sections.
352
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353* New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge
354 collection.
355
c6dd86c6 356* ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current
f96b4a7b 357 VFP11 coprocessors.
c6dd86c6 358
c17d87de 359Changes in 2.17:
cf88bb9f 360
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361* Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
362
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363* Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order.
364 Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before
365 searching the default directories, rather than vice versa.
366 Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf.
c1446dba 367
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368* PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files
369 passed directly to ld.
370
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371* Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
372
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373* Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
374 switches can be read from <file>.
375
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376Changes in 2.16:
377
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378* Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF
379 specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option.
380
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381* New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag
382 for input files listed inside of it.
383
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384* A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the
385 default sysroot location. It only applies to toolchains that were
386 configured using --with-sysroot.
387
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388* New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information
389 about a specified memory region.
390
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391* Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
392
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393* Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to
394 override the base address for a segment from the command-line.
395
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396* ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared
397 object.
398
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399* Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script
400 language to permit sorting sections by section name or section
401 maximum alignment.
402
a05a5b64 403* Added a new linker command-line switch, --sort-section name|alignment,
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404 to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment.
405
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406* ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag
407 should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags.
14b3c463 408
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409* Support for the crx-elf target added.
410
1a320fbb 411* Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
1fe1f39c 412
a05a5b64 413* A new linker command-line switch has been added which allows the hash table
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414 size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument. This switch
415 is --hash-size=<NUMBER>. Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is
416 used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set
417 to 1021.
418
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419* Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols
420 that are defined in each section. This uses about 40% more memory for
421 symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm. You can use the new
422 --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option
423 might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs.
424
2d643429 425Changes in 2.15:
14b3c463 426
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427* ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should
428 be added only when a shared library is referenced.
c0065db7 429
8fdd7217 430* PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual
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431 addresses greater than 2 gigabytes.
432
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433* DWARF 2 support for i386pe added.
434
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435* The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that
436 is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used.
437
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438* The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for
439 Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
440
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441* cr16c support added by NSC.
442
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443* m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas.
444
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445* Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols. The switch
446 --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it
447 should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to
448 make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors.
449
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450Changes in 2.14:
451
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452* Added support for Xtensa architecture.
453
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454* Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for
455 linking against a target filesystem image.
456
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457* Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre
458 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary
459 file format.
460
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461* Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option.
462
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463* Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
464 DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
c0065db7 465
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466* Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for
467 LIB_PATH.
468
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469* ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson.
470
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471* IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov.
472
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473Changes in 2.13:
474
475* Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
476 and FR500 included.
7d553a40 477
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478Changes in version 2.13:
479
480* DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas.
481
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482Changes in version 2.12:
483
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484* Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
485
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486* Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
487
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488* Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables
489 production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in
490 non-sharable applications.
5b343f5a 491
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492* Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic
493 relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker
494 can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache.
495
496* Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek.
497
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498Changes in version 2.11:
499
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500* Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
501
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502* Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by
503 having the compiler generate the information in sections called
504 .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The
505 linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info
506 section.
252b5132 507
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508* The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or
509 DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it.
510
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511* TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall.
512
a05a5b64 513* Added command-line switch --section-start to set the start address of any
c0065db7 514 specified section.
176355da 515
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516* Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables,
517 enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need
518 this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform
519 symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents
520 (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.)
521
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522* Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality).
523
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524* Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
525
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526* Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
527
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528Changes in version 2.10:
529
c0065db7 530* Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of
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531 sections into regions.
532
c0065db7 533* Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections.
252b5132 534 It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are
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535 arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf,
536 mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf.
987fd5b4 537 Others will ignore the option.
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538
539* Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file
540 name or section name.
541
542* Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u
543 command-line option.
544
545* Added ASSERT to the linker script language.
546
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547* Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over
548 wildcard file names.
549
252b5132 550* Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only
500800ca 551 affects ELF shared library generation).
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552
553* The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name.
554
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555* Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a
556 shared library.
557
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558* The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when
559 using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old
560 behaviour.
561
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562* Added --demangle and --no-demangle options.
563
564Changes in version 2.9:
565
566* Added SQUAD to the linker script language.
567
568* New option --no-warn-mismatch.
569
570* The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that
571 are not placed in a specific memory region are placed.
572
573Changes in version 2.8:
574
575* Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section
576 names.
577
578* The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF.
579
580* The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language.
581
582* The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language.
583
584* MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language.
585
586* The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language.
587
588* New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section
589 changes due to alignment of an input section.
590
591* New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f.
592
593Changes in version 2.7:
594
595* New option --cref to print out a cross reference table.
596
597* New option --wrap SYMBOL.
598
599* New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive.
600
601* Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script
602 are not included in the output file.
603
604* The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses
605 the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging
606 information generated.
607
608Changes in version 2.6:
609
610* When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
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611of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
612__start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
613beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc.
614
615 Addendum: Current versions of the linker (at least for version 2.18 onwards
616and possibly much earlier as well) place two restrictions on this feature: The
617symbols are only implemented for orphaned sections, not for explicitly placed
618sections and they are PROVIDEd rather than being defined.
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619
620* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
621contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
622not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc.
623
624* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
625file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
626the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into
1049f94e 627the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link. This is used by
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628glibc.
629
630* New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
631
632* The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can
633also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker,
634will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e
635nor the -r option was used.
636
637* The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be
638searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the
639-L options.
640
641* The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
642enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
643only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will
644prevent this optimization.
645
646Changes in version 2.5:
647
648* The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can
649not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
07f3b6ad 650generate shared libraries.
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651
652* The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
653(UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
654used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well
655tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for
656Solaris again.
657
658* Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
659Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
660
661* The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new
662ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far,
663this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
6645), and HPPA ELF targets.
665
666* The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
667support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
668This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
669
670* When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
671it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
672file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
673default linker script.
674
675* The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per
676undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
677
678* The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to
679use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So
680far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
681
682* The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V
683behaviour is available via --verbose.
684
685Changes in version 2.4:
686
687* New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff
688 formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
689 and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
690 before for formats not converted yet.
691
692* Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means
693 oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
694 separators.
695
696* HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.)
697
698* Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
699
700* Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
701 libraries are not yet supported).
702
703* COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
704
705* The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
706 forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when
707 statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
708
709Changes in version 2.3:
710
711* Weak symbols are now supported.
712
713* ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on
714 UnixWare and Solaris.
715
716* Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
717
718Changes in version 2.2:
719
720* The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
721 table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input
722 files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
723 static symbols) should be much smaller.
724
725Changes in version 2.1:
726
727* The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
728
729* There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
730 other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.
731
732\f
219d1afa 733Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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734
735Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
736are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
737notice and this notice are preserved.
738
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739Local variables:
740fill-column: 79
741End:
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