Add markers for 2.32 branch to NEWS and ChangeLog files.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / ld / NEWS
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252b5132 1-*- text -*-
97a232d7 2
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3* Report property change in linker map file when merging GNU properties.
4
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5* Add support for the C-SKY processor series.
6
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7Changes in 2.31:
8
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9* Speed up direct linking with DLLs for Cygwin and Mingw targets.
10
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11* Add a configure option --enable-separate-code to decide whether
12 -z separate-code should be enabled in ELF linker by default. Default
13 to yes for Linux/x86 targets. Note that -z separate-code can increase
14 disk and memory size.
15
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16Changes in 2.30:
17
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18* Add -z separate-code to generate separate code PT_LOAD segment.
19
a05a5b64 20* Add "-z undefs" command-line option as the inverse of the "-z defs" option.
97a232d7 21
a05a5b64 22* Add -z globalaudit command-line option to force audit libraries to be run
93ab9c0d 23 for every dynamic object loaded by an executable - provided that the loader
6c19b93b 24 supports this functionality.
7feec526 25
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26* Tighten linker script grammar around file name specifiers to prevent the use
27 of SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT and SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY on filenames. These would
28 previously be accepted but had no effect.
29
30* The EXCLUDE_FILE directive can now be placed within any SORT_* directive
31 within input section lists.
32
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33Changes in 2.29:
34
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35* Support for -z shstk in the x86 ELF linker to generate
36 GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_SHSTK in ELF GNU program properties.
37
38* Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_SHSTK in ELF GNU program
39 properties in the x86 ELF linker.
40
ee2fdd6f 41* Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_IBT in ELF GNU program
48580982 42 properties in the x86 ELF linker.
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43
44* Support for -z ibtplt in the x86 ELF linker to generate IBT-enabled
45 PLT.
46
47* Support for -z ibt in the x86 ELF linker to generate IBT-enabled
48 PLT as well as GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_IBT in ELF GNU program
49 properties.
50
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51* Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX.
52
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53* Add support for ELF GNU program properties.
54
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55* Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
56
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57* When configuring for arc*-*-linux* targets the default linker emulation will
58 change if --with-cpu=nps400 is used at configure time.
59
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60* Improve assignment of LMAs to orphan sections in some edge cases where a
61 mixture of both AT>LMA_REGION and AT(LMA) are used.
62
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63* Orphan sections placed after an empty section that has an AT(LMA) will now
64 take an load memory address starting from LMA.
65
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66* Section groups can now be resolved (the group deleted and the group members
67 placed like normal sections) at partial link time either using the new linker
68 option --force-group-allocation or by placing FORCE_GROUP_ALLOCATION into the
69 linker script.
70
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71Changes in 2.28:
72
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73* The EXCLUDE_FILE linker script construct can now be applied outside of the
74 section list in order for the exclusions to apply over all input sections in
75 the list.
76
e23eba97 77* Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
76359541 78
a05a5b64 79* The command-line option --no-eh-frame-hdr can now be used in ELF based
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80 linkers to disable the automatic generation of .eh_frame_hdr sections.
81
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82* Add --in-implib=<infile> to the ARM linker to enable specifying a set of
83 Secure Gateway veneers that must exist in the output import library specified
84 by --out-implib=<outfile> and the address they must have. As such,
85 --in-implib is only supported in combination with --cmse-implib.
86
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87* Extended the --out-implib=<file> option, previously restricted to x86 PE
88 targets, to any ELF based target. This allows the generation of an import
89 library for an ELF executable, which can then be used by another application
90 to link against the executable.
91
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92Changes in 2.27:
93
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94* Add a configure option --enable-relro to decide whether -z relro should
95 be enabled in ELF linker by default. Default to yes for all Linux
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96 targets except FRV, HPPA, IA64 and MIPS. Note that -z relro can increase
97 disk and memory size.
647e4d46 98
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99* Support for -z noreloc-overflow in the x86-64 ELF linker to disable
100 relocation overflow check.
101
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102* Add -z common/-z nocommon options for ELF targets to control whether to
103 convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type during a relocatable link.
104
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105* Support for -z nodynamic-undefined-weak in the x86 ELF linker, which
106 avoids dynamic relocations against undefined weak symbols in executable.
107
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108* The NOCROSSREFSTO command was added to the linker script language.
109
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110* Add --no-apply-dynamic-relocs to the AArch64 linker to do not apply link-time
111 values for dynamic relocations.
112
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113Changes in 2.26:
114
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115* Add --fix-stm32l4xx-629360 to the ARM linker to enable a link-time
116 workaround for a bug in the bus matrix / memory controller for some of
117 the STM32 Cortex-M4 based products (STM32L4xx)
81c23f82 118
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119* Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,ld} to
120 decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
121
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122* Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
123
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124* Experimental support for linker garbage collection (--gc-sections)
125 has been enabled for COFF and PE based targets.
126
a05a5b64 127* New command-line option for ELF targets to compress DWARF debug
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128 sections, --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi].
129
a05a5b64 130* New command-line option, --orphan-handling=[place|warn|error|discard], to
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131 adjust how orphan sections are handled. The default is 'place' which gives
132 the current behaviour, 'warn' and 'error' issue a warning or error
133 respectively when orphan sections are found, and 'discard' will discard all
134 orphan sections.
3ea60775 135
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136* Add support for LLVM plugin.
137
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138* Add --print-memory-usage option to report memory blocks usage.
139
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140* Add --require-defined option, it's like --undefined except the new symbol
141 must be defined by the end of the link.
142
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143Changes in 2.25:
144
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145* PE binaries now once again contain real timestamps by default. To disable
146 the inclusion of a timestamp in a PE binary, use the --no-insert-timestamp
a05a5b64 147 command-line option.
eeb14e5a 148
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149* Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
150
a05a5b64 151* Add support for the --build-id command-line option to COFF based targets.
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152
153* x86/x86_64 pe-coff now supports the --build-id option.
154
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155* Add support for the Andes NDS32.
156
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157Changes in 2.24:
158
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159* Add LOG2CEIL() builtin function to the linker script language
160
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161* Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
162
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163* Add support for Altera Nios II.
164
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165* Add support for the V850E3V5 architecture.
166
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167* Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
168
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169* --enable-new-dtags no longer generates old dtags in addition to new dtags.
170
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171* Remove linker support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
172
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173* Add ALIGN_WITH_INPUT to the linker script language to force the alignment of
174 an output section to use the maximum alignment of all its input sections.
175
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176Changes in 2.23:
177
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178* Enable compressed debug section feature for x86/x86_64 pe-coff.
179
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180* Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
181
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182* Added SORT_NONE to the linker script language to disable section sorting.
183
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184* Add a linker-provided symbol when producing ELF output, '__ehdr_start'
185 to point to the ELF file header (and nearby program headers) in the
186 program's memory image.
187
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188* Add support for S12X processor.
189
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190* Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
191
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192* Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
193
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194* Add option -f FILE on AIX (for response file).
195
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196* Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
197
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198* Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
199
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200Changes in 2.22:
201
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202* --copy-dt-needed-entries is no longer enabled by default. Instead
203 --no-copy-dt-needed-entries is the default.
204
ae17ab41 205* INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS has been added to the linker script language
cfb8c092 206 to allow selection of input sections by section header section flags.
ae17ab41 207
69f56ae1 208* Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
90b3661c 209
02ecc8e9 210* Added SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY to the linker script language to permit
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211 sorting sections by numerical value of the GCC init_priority attribute
212 encoded in the section name.
02ecc8e9 213
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214Changes in 2.21:
215
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216* Linker script expression evaluation is somewhat more sane. This may
217 break scripts that depend on quirks of the old expression evaluation.
218
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219* Turn off underscoring for x86_64 PE+-COFF targets. For old behavior the
220 option --enable-leading-mingw64-underscores can be used on configure of
221 bfd.
222
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223* Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
224
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225* --add-needed renamed to --copy-dt-needed-entries in order to avoid confusion
226 with --as-needed option.
227
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228* Extend .def file syntax by '== <ID>' for imports and exports. This allows
229 to alias the import/export table name written in PE image.
230
a72173de 231* Add --exclude-all-symbols option to PE based linkers. This prevents all
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232 symbols from automatically being exported.
233
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234* Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
235
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236* Add support for alpha-vms target.
237
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238Changes in 2.20:
239
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240* GNU/Linux targets now support the STB_GNU_UNIQUE symbol binding. This is a
241 GNU extension to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings. The binding will
242 be passed on to the dynamic linker which will make sure that in the entire
243 process there is just one symbol with the given name and type in use.
ce11ba6c 244
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245* PE targets now support a GNU extension to allow the alignment of common
246 common symbols to be specified. This support uses custom options in
247 the .drectve section, which will be disregarded by the native tools.
248
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249* PE targets now add primitive support for ELF version scripts; symbols
250 are not versioned, but the local and global symbol visibility directives
251 are respected when filtering symbols in auto-export mode.
252
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253* New option --no-export-dynamic to undo the effect of the -E and
254 --export-dynamic options.
255
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256* ELF: --warn-alternate-em option to warn if an object has alternate
257 ELF machine code.
258
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259* New script function REGION_ALIAS to add alias names to memory regions.
260
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261* PE targets no longer make use of the long section names PE extension to
262 the COFF format when generating executable images, by default. The old
263 (slightly non-conformant) behaviour can still be invoked by using the
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264 new '--enable-long-section-names' command-line option. It is also enabled
265 automatically in the presence of un-stripped debug information, as GDB
266 needs to be able to find the debug info sections by their full names.
88183869 267
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268* For GNU/Linux systems the linker will now avoid processing any relocations
269 made against symbols of the STT_GNU_IFUNC type and instead emit them into
270 the resulting binary for processing by the loader.
271
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272* --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
273 symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries. In the
274 latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
275 entry of one of the libraries already linked.
276
a05a5b64 277* Add a new command-line option, -Ttext-segment ADDR, for ELF targets
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278 to set the address of the first byte of the text segment.
279
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280* Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
281
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282* Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to ld for PE targets to
283 allow fallback to old import table generation with null element prefix.
284
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285* Windows PE systems now support a new --exclude-modules-for-implib option,
286 allowing users to partition object files and archive members between a DLL
287 and its associated import library as they are generated during linking.
288
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289* Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
290
62655c7b 291* Add CR16 ELF --embedded-relocs (used to embedded relocations into binaries
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292 for Embedded-PIC code) option.
293
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294* Add to the PE/PE+ targets the support of two different kinds of
295 pseudo-relocations. They can be selected by the switches
296 --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v1 and --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v2.
297 For the switch --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc it uses for 32-bit
298 runtime pseudo relocation version one, for 64-bit the version two.
299
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300Changes in 2.19:
301
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302* Linker scripts support a new INSERT command that makes it easier to
303 augment the default script.
304
967928e9 305* Linker script input section filespecs may now specify a file within an
66c103b7 306 archive by writing "archive:file".
967928e9 307
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308* The --sort-common switch now has an optional argument which specifies the
309 direction of sorting.
310
7fb9f789 311* The M68K linker now supports multiple GOT generation schemes controlled via
a05a5b64 312 the --got=<type> command-line option.
7fb9f789 313
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314* The ARM EABI linker will now generate stubs for function calls to symbols
315 that are too far away. The placement of the stubs is controlled by a new
a05a5b64 316 linker command-line option: --stub-group-size=N.
726150b7 317
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318Changes in 2.18:
319
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320* Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public
321 License.
322
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323* ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier
324 embedded in a note section.
325
3d3d428f 326* Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target.
a19bcec6 327
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328* -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo,
329 without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so.
330
a05a5b64 331* Add a new command-line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE'
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332 which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker
333 script.
334
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335* ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++
336 operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data,
337 builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the
338 dynamic list.
339
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340* Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
341
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342* Add support for Score target.
343
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344* ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols
345 whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the
346 shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the
347 symbol table in the executable.
348
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349* The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from
350 being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as
351 the previous output section in the same region. This is a more useful
352 default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA
353 differing from the VMA for some sections.
354
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355* New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge
356 collection.
357
c6dd86c6 358* ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current
f96b4a7b 359 VFP11 coprocessors.
c6dd86c6 360
c17d87de 361Changes in 2.17:
cf88bb9f 362
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363* Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
364
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365* Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order.
366 Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before
367 searching the default directories, rather than vice versa.
368 Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf.
c1446dba 369
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370* PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files
371 passed directly to ld.
372
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373* Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
374
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375* Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
376 switches can be read from <file>.
377
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378Changes in 2.16:
379
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380* Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF
381 specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option.
382
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383* New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag
384 for input files listed inside of it.
385
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386* A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the
387 default sysroot location. It only applies to toolchains that were
388 configured using --with-sysroot.
389
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390* New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information
391 about a specified memory region.
392
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393* Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
394
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395* Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to
396 override the base address for a segment from the command-line.
397
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398* ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared
399 object.
400
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401* Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script
402 language to permit sorting sections by section name or section
403 maximum alignment.
404
a05a5b64 405* Added a new linker command-line switch, --sort-section name|alignment,
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406 to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment.
407
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408* ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag
409 should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags.
14b3c463 410
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411* Support for the crx-elf target added.
412
1a320fbb 413* Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
1fe1f39c 414
a05a5b64 415* A new linker command-line switch has been added which allows the hash table
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416 size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument. This switch
417 is --hash-size=<NUMBER>. Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is
418 used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set
419 to 1021.
420
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421* Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols
422 that are defined in each section. This uses about 40% more memory for
423 symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm. You can use the new
424 --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option
425 might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs.
426
2d643429 427Changes in 2.15:
14b3c463 428
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429* ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should
430 be added only when a shared library is referenced.
c0065db7 431
8fdd7217 432* PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual
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433 addresses greater than 2 gigabytes.
434
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435* DWARF 2 support for i386pe added.
436
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437* The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that
438 is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used.
439
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440* The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for
441 Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
442
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443* cr16c support added by NSC.
444
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445* m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas.
446
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447* Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols. The switch
448 --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it
449 should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to
450 make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors.
451
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452Changes in 2.14:
453
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454* Added support for Xtensa architecture.
455
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456* Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for
457 linking against a target filesystem image.
458
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459* Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre
460 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary
461 file format.
462
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463* Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option.
464
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465* Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
466 DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
c0065db7 467
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468* Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for
469 LIB_PATH.
470
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471* ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson.
472
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473* IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov.
474
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475Changes in 2.13:
476
477* Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
478 and FR500 included.
7d553a40 479
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480Changes in version 2.13:
481
482* DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas.
483
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484Changes in version 2.12:
485
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486* Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
487
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488* Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
489
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490* Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables
491 production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in
492 non-sharable applications.
5b343f5a 493
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494* Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic
495 relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker
496 can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache.
497
498* Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek.
499
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500Changes in version 2.11:
501
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502* Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
503
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504* Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by
505 having the compiler generate the information in sections called
506 .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The
507 linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info
508 section.
252b5132 509
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510* The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or
511 DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it.
512
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513* TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall.
514
a05a5b64 515* Added command-line switch --section-start to set the start address of any
c0065db7 516 specified section.
176355da 517
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518* Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables,
519 enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need
520 this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform
521 symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents
522 (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.)
523
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524* Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality).
525
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526* Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
527
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528* Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
529
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530Changes in version 2.10:
531
c0065db7 532* Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of
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533 sections into regions.
534
c0065db7 535* Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections.
252b5132 536 It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are
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537 arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf,
538 mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf.
987fd5b4 539 Others will ignore the option.
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540
541* Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file
542 name or section name.
543
544* Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u
545 command-line option.
546
547* Added ASSERT to the linker script language.
548
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549* Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over
550 wildcard file names.
551
252b5132 552* Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only
500800ca 553 affects ELF shared library generation).
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554
555* The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name.
556
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557* Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a
558 shared library.
559
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560* The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when
561 using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old
562 behaviour.
563
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564* Added --demangle and --no-demangle options.
565
566Changes in version 2.9:
567
568* Added SQUAD to the linker script language.
569
570* New option --no-warn-mismatch.
571
572* The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that
573 are not placed in a specific memory region are placed.
574
575Changes in version 2.8:
576
577* Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section
578 names.
579
580* The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF.
581
582* The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language.
583
584* The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language.
585
586* MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language.
587
588* The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language.
589
590* New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section
591 changes due to alignment of an input section.
592
593* New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f.
594
595Changes in version 2.7:
596
597* New option --cref to print out a cross reference table.
598
599* New option --wrap SYMBOL.
600
601* New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive.
602
603* Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script
604 are not included in the output file.
605
606* The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses
607 the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging
608 information generated.
609
610Changes in version 2.6:
611
612* When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
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613of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
614__start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
615beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc.
616
617 Addendum: Current versions of the linker (at least for version 2.18 onwards
618and possibly much earlier as well) place two restrictions on this feature: The
619symbols are only implemented for orphaned sections, not for explicitly placed
620sections and they are PROVIDEd rather than being defined.
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621
622* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
623contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
624not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc.
625
626* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
627file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
628the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into
1049f94e 629the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link. This is used by
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630glibc.
631
632* New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
633
634* The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can
635also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker,
636will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e
637nor the -r option was used.
638
639* The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be
640searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the
641-L options.
642
643* The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
644enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
645only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will
646prevent this optimization.
647
648Changes in version 2.5:
649
650* The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can
651not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
07f3b6ad 652generate shared libraries.
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653
654* The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
655(UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
656used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well
657tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for
658Solaris again.
659
660* Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
661Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
662
663* The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new
664ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far,
665this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
6665), and HPPA ELF targets.
667
668* The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
669support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
670This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
671
672* When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
673it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
674file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
675default linker script.
676
677* The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per
678undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
679
680* The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to
681use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So
682far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
683
684* The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V
685behaviour is available via --verbose.
686
687Changes in version 2.4:
688
689* New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff
690 formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
691 and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
692 before for formats not converted yet.
693
694* Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means
695 oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
696 separators.
697
698* HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.)
699
700* Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
701
702* Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
703 libraries are not yet supported).
704
705* COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
706
707* The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
708 forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when
709 statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
710
711Changes in version 2.3:
712
713* Weak symbols are now supported.
714
715* ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on
716 UnixWare and Solaris.
717
718* Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
719
720Changes in version 2.2:
721
722* The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
723 table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input
724 files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
725 static symbols) should be much smaller.
726
727Changes in version 2.1:
728
729* The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
730
731* There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
732 other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.
733
734\f
82704155 735Copyright (C) 2012-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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736
737Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
738are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
739notice and this notice are preserved.
740
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741Local variables:
742fill-column: 79
743End:
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