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632dcce8 KR |
1 | -*- text -*- |
2 | ||
86bc0974 ILT |
3 | Changes since version 2.7: |
4 | ||
5 | * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section | |
6 | names. | |
7 | ||
582dd77f ILT |
8 | * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language. |
9 | ||
5735ac9e ILT |
10 | * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language. |
11 | ||
86bc0974 ILT |
12 | Changes since version 2.6: |
13 | ||
14 | * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table. | |
15 | ||
16 | * New option --wrap SYMBOL. | |
17 | ||
18 | * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive. | |
19 | ||
20 | * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script | |
21 | are not included in the output file. | |
22 | ||
23 | * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses | |
24 | the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging | |
25 | information generated. | |
26 | ||
bca8b442 ILT |
27 | Changes since version 2.5: |
28 | ||
29 | * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true | |
30 | of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols | |
31 | __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the | |
32 | beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc. | |
33 | ||
34 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the | |
35 | contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is | |
36 | not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc. | |
37 | ||
b4f9d9bc ILT |
38 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input |
39 | file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of | |
40 | the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into | |
41 | the output file, unless doing a relocateable or shared link. This is used by | |
42 | glibc. | |
43 | ||
bca8b442 ILT |
44 | * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file. |
45 | ||
b4f9d9bc | 46 | * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can |
86bc0974 ILT |
47 | also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker, |
48 | will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e | |
49 | nor the -r option was used. | |
50 | ||
51 | * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be | |
52 | searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the | |
53 | -L options. | |
bca8b442 ILT |
54 | |
55 | * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and | |
56 | enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will | |
57 | only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will | |
58 | prevent this optimization. | |
59 | ||
8150b20a ILT |
60 | Changes since version 2.4: |
61 | ||
62 | * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can | |
63 | not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to | |
64 | generate shared libaries. | |
65 | ||
66 | * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386 | |
67 | (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be | |
68 | used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well | |
69 | tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for | |
70 | Solaris again. | |
71 | ||
72 | * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against | |
73 | Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries. | |
74 | ||
75 | * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new | |
bca8b442 ILT |
76 | ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far, |
77 | this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix | |
78 | 5), and HPPA ELF targets. | |
8150b20a ILT |
79 | |
80 | * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to | |
81 | support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive. | |
82 | This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ). | |
83 | ||
84 | * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize | |
85 | it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script | |
86 | file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the | |
87 | default linker script. | |
88 | ||
89 | * The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per | |
90 | undefined symbol, rather than once per reference. | |
91 | ||
bca8b442 ILT |
92 | * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to |
93 | use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So | |
94 | far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets. | |
95 | ||
96 | * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V | |
97 | behaviour is available via --verbose. | |
98 | ||
632dcce8 KR |
99 | Changes since version 2.3: |
100 | ||
101 | * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff | |
102 | formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time | |
103 | and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than | |
104 | before for formats not converted yet. | |
105 | ||
632dcce8 KR |
106 | * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means |
107 | oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument | |
108 | separators. | |
109 | ||
110 | * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.) | |
111 | ||
632dcce8 KR |
112 | * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie. |
113 | ||
8150b20a ILT |
114 | * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared |
115 | libraries are not yet supported). | |
116 | ||
117 | * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well. | |
118 | ||
119 | * The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just | |
120 | forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when | |
121 | statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet. | |
122 | ||
632dcce8 KR |
123 | Changes since version 2.2: |
124 | ||
125 | * Weak symbols are now supported. | |
126 | ||
127 | * ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on | |
128 | UnixWare and Solaris. | |
129 | ||
130 | * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only). | |
131 | ||
132 | Changes since version 2.1: | |
133 | ||
134 | * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string | |
135 | table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input | |
136 | files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical | |
137 | static symbols) should be much smaller. | |
138 | ||
139 | Changes since version 2.0: | |
bc3b479c PB |
140 | |
141 | * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented. | |
142 | ||
143 | * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the | |
144 | other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. | |
632dcce8 KR |
145 | |
146 | \f | |
147 | Local variables: | |
148 | fill-column: 79 | |
149 | End: |