ld/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * The EXCLUDE_FILE linker script construct can now be applied outside of the
   4   section list in order for the exclusions to apply over all input sections in
   5   the list.
   6
   7 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
   8
   9 * The command line option --no-eh-frame-hdr can now be used in ELF based
  10   linkers to disable the automatic generation of .eh_frame_hdr sections.
  11
  12 * Add --in-implib=<infile> to the ARM linker to enable specifying a set of
  13   Secure Gateway veneers that must exist in the output import library specified
  14   by --out-implib=<outfile> and the address they must have.  As such,
  15   --in-implib is only supported in combination with --cmse-implib.
  16
  17 * Extended the --out-implib=<file> option, previously restricted to x86 PE
  18   targets, to any ELF based target.  This allows the generation of an import
  19   library for an ELF executable, which can then be used by another application
  20   to link against the executable.
  21
  22 Changes in 2.27:
  23
  24 * Add a configure option --enable-relro to decide whether -z relro should
  25   be enabled in ELF linker by default.  Default to yes for all Linux
  26   targets except FRV, HPPA, IA64 and MIPS.
  27
  28 * Support for -z noreloc-overflow in the x86-64 ELF linker to disable
  29   relocation overflow check.
  30
  31 * Add -z common/-z nocommon options for ELF targets to control whether to
  32   convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type during a relocatable link.
  33
  34 * Support for -z nodynamic-undefined-weak in the x86 ELF linker, which
  35   avoids dynamic relocations against undefined weak symbols in executable.
  36
  37 * The NOCROSSREFSTO command was added to the linker script language.
  38
  39 * Add --no-apply-dynamic-relocs to the AArch64 linker to do not apply link-time
  40   values for dynamic relocations.
  41
  42 Changes in 2.26:
  43
  44 * Add --fix-stm32l4xx-629360 to the ARM linker to enable a link-time
  45   workaround for a bug in the bus matrix / memory controller for some of
  46   the STM32 Cortex-M4 based products (STM32L4xx)
  47
  48 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,ld} to
  49   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
  50
  51 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
  52
  53 * Experimental support for linker garbage collection (--gc-sections)
  54   has been enabled for COFF and PE based targets.
  55
  56 * New command line option for ELF targets to compress DWARF debug
  57   sections, --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi].
  58
  59 * New command line option, --orphan-handling=[place|warn|error|discard], to
  60   adjust how orphan sections are handled.  The default is 'place' which gives
  61   the current behaviour, 'warn' and 'error' issue a warning or error
  62   respectively when orphan sections are found, and 'discard' will discard all
  63   orphan sections.
  64
  65 * Add support for LLVM plugin.
  66
  67 * Add --print-memory-usage option to report memory blocks usage.
  68
  69 * Add --require-defined option, it's like --undefined except the new symbol
  70   must be defined by the end of the link.
  71
  72 Changes in 2.25:
  73
  74 * PE binaries now once again contain real timestamps by default.  To disable
  75   the inclusion of a timestamp in a PE binary, use the --no-insert-timestamp
  76   command line option.
  77
  78 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
  79
  80 * Add support for the --build-id command line option to COFF based targets.
  81
  82 * x86/x86_64 pe-coff now supports the --build-id option.
  83
  84 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
  85
  86 Changes in 2.24:
  87
  88 * Add LOG2CEIL() builtin function to the linker script language
  89
  90 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
  91
  92 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
  93
  94 * Add support for the V850E3V5 architecture.
  95
  96 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
  97
  98 * --enable-new-dtags no longer generates old dtags in addition to new dtags.
  99
 100 * Remove linker support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 101
 102 * Add ALIGN_WITH_INPUT to the linker script language to force the alignment of
 103   an output section to use the maximum alignment of all its input sections.
 104
 105 Changes in 2.23:
 106
 107 * Enable compressed debug section feature for x86/x86_64 pe-coff.
 108
 109 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 110
 111 * Added SORT_NONE to the linker script language to disable section sorting.
 112
 113 * Add a linker-provided symbol when producing ELF output, '__ehdr_start'
 114   to point to the ELF file header (and nearby program headers) in the
 115   program's memory image.
 116
 117 * Add support for S12X processor.
 118
 119 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 120
 121 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 122
 123 * Add option -f FILE on AIX (for response file).
 124
 125 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 126
 127 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 128
 129 Changes in 2.22:
 130
 131 * --copy-dt-needed-entries is no longer enabled by default.  Instead
 132   --no-copy-dt-needed-entries is the default.
 133
 134 * INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS has been added to the linker script language
 135   to allow selection of input sections by section header section flags.
 136
 137 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 138
 139 * Added SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY to the linker script language to permit
 140   sorting sections by numerical value of the GCC init_priority attribute
 141   encoded in the section name.
 142
 143 Changes in 2.21:
 144
 145 * Linker script expression evaluation is somewhat more sane.  This may
 146   break scripts that depend on quirks of the old expression evaluation.
 147
 148 * Turn off underscoring for x86_64 PE+-COFF targets.  For old behavior the
 149   option --enable-leading-mingw64-underscores can be used on configure of
 150   bfd.
 151
 152 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 153
 154 * --add-needed renamed to --copy-dt-needed-entries in order to avoid confusion
 155   with --as-needed option.
 156
 157 * Extend .def file syntax by '== <ID>' for imports and exports. This allows
 158   to alias the import/export table name written in PE image.
 159
 160 * Add --exclude-all-symbols option to PE based linkers.  This prevents all
 161   symbols from automatically being exported.
 162
 163 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 164
 165 * Add support for alpha-vms target.
 166
 167 Changes in 2.20:
 168
 169 * GNU/Linux targets now support the STB_GNU_UNIQUE symbol binding.  This is a
 170   GNU extension to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings.  The binding will
 171   be passed on to the dynamic linker which will make sure that in the entire
 172   process there is just one symbol with the given name and type in use.
 173
 174 * PE targets now support a GNU extension to allow the alignment of common
 175   common symbols to be specified.  This support uses custom options in
 176   the .drectve section, which will be disregarded by the native tools.
 177
 178 * PE targets now add primitive support for ELF version scripts; symbols
 179   are not versioned, but the local and global symbol visibility directives
 180   are respected when filtering symbols in auto-export mode.
 181
 182 * New option --no-export-dynamic to undo the effect of the -E and
 183   --export-dynamic options.
 184
 185 * ELF: --warn-alternate-em option to warn if an object has alternate
 186   ELF machine code.
 187
 188 * New script function REGION_ALIAS to add alias names to memory regions.
 189
 190 * PE targets no longer make use of the long section names PE extension to
 191   the COFF format when generating executable images, by default.  The old
 192   (slightly non-conformant) behaviour can still be invoked by using the
 193   new '--enable-long-section-names' command-line option.  It is also enabled
 194   automatically in the presence of un-stripped debug information, as GDB
 195   needs to be able to find the debug info sections by their full names.
 196
 197 * For GNU/Linux systems the linker will now avoid processing any relocations
 198   made against symbols of the STT_GNU_IFUNC type and instead emit them into
 199   the resulting binary for processing by the loader.
 200
 201 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 202   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 203   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 204   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 205
 206 * Add a new command line option, -Ttext-segment ADDR, for ELF targets
 207   to set the address of the first byte of the text segment.
 208
 209 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 210
 211 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to ld for PE targets to
 212   allow fallback to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 213
 214 * Windows PE systems now support a new --exclude-modules-for-implib option,
 215   allowing users to partition object files and archive members between a DLL
 216   and its associated import library as they are generated during linking.
 217
 218 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 219
 220 * Add CR16 ELF --embedded-relocs (used to embedded relocations into binaries
 221   for Embedded-PIC code) option.
 222
 223 * Add to the PE/PE+ targets the support of two different kinds of
 224   pseudo-relocations.  They can be selected by the switches
 225   --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v1 and --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v2.
 226   For the switch --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc it uses for 32-bit
 227   runtime pseudo relocation version one, for 64-bit the version two.
 228
 229 Changes in 2.19:
 230
 231 * Linker scripts support a new INSERT command that makes it easier to
 232   augment the default script.
 233
 234 * Linker script input section filespecs may now specify a file within an
 235   archive by writing "archive:file".
 236
 237 * The --sort-common switch now has an optional argument which specifies the
 238   direction of sorting.
 239
 240 * The M68K linker now supports multiple GOT generation schemes controlled via
 241   the --got=<type> command line option.
 242
 243 * The ARM EABI linker will now generate stubs for function calls to symbols
 244   that are too far away.  The placement of the stubs is controlled by a new
 245   linker command line option: --stub-group-size=N.
 246
 247 Changes in 2.18:
 248
 249 * Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public
 250   License.
 251
 252 * ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier
 253   embedded in a note section.
 254
 255 * Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target.
 256
 257 * -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo,
 258   without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so.
 259
 260 * Add a new command line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE'
 261   which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker
 262   script.
 263
 264 * ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++
 265   operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data,
 266   builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the
 267   dynamic list.
 268
 269 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 270
 271 * Add support for Score target.
 272
 273 * ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols
 274   whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the
 275   shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the
 276   symbol table in the executable.
 277
 278 * The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from
 279   being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as
 280   the previous output section in the same region.  This is a more useful
 281   default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA
 282   differing from the VMA for some sections.
 283
 284 * New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge
 285   collection.
 286
 287 * ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current
 288   VFP11 coprocessors.
 289
 290 Changes in 2.17:
 291
 292 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 293
 294 * Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order.
 295   Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before
 296   searching the default directories, rather than vice versa.
 297   Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf.
 298
 299 * PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files
 300   passed directly to ld.
 301
 302 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 303
 304 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 305   switches can be read from <file>.
 306
 307 Changes in 2.16:
 308
 309 * Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF
 310   specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option.
 311
 312 * New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag
 313   for input files listed inside of it.
 314
 315 * A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the
 316   default sysroot location.  It only applies to toolchains that were
 317   configured using --with-sysroot.
 318
 319 * New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information
 320   about a specified memory region.
 321
 322 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 323
 324 * Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to
 325   override the base address for a segment from the command-line.
 326
 327 * ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared
 328   object.
 329
 330 * Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script
 331   language to permit sorting sections by section name or section
 332   maximum alignment.
 333
 334 * Added a new linker command line switch, --sort-section name|alignment,
 335   to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment.
 336
 337 * ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag
 338   should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags.
 339
 340 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 341
 342 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 343
 344 * A new linker command line switch has been added which allows the hash table
 345   size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument.  This switch
 346   is --hash-size=<NUMBER>.  Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is
 347   used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set
 348   to 1021.
 349
 350 * Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols
 351   that are defined in each section.  This uses about 40% more memory for
 352   symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm.  You can use the new
 353   --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option
 354   might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs.
 355
 356 Changes in 2.15:
 357
 358 * ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should
 359   be added only when a shared library is referenced.
 360
 361 * PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual
 362   addresses greater than 2 gigabytes.
 363
 364 * DWARF 2 support for i386pe added.
 365
 366 * The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that
 367   is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used.
 368
 369 * The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for
 370   Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 371
 372 * cr16c support added by NSC.
 373
 374 * m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas.
 375
 376 * Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols.  The switch
 377   --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it
 378   should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to
 379   make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors.
 380
 381 Changes in 2.14:
 382
 383 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 384
 385 * Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for
 386   linking against a target filesystem image.
 387
 388 * Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre
 389   2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary
 390   file format.
 391
 392 * Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option.
 393
 394 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 395   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 396
 397 * Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for
 398   LIB_PATH.
 399
 400 * ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson.
 401
 402 * IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov.
 403
 404 Changes in 2.13:
 405
 406 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 407   and FR500 included.
 408
 409 Changes in version 2.13:
 410
 411 * DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas.
 412
 413 Changes in version 2.12:
 414
 415 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 416
 417 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 418
 419 * Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables
 420   production of copy relocs.  Warning: using this option may result in
 421   non-sharable applications.
 422
 423 * Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic
 424   relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker
 425   can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache.
 426
 427 * Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek.
 428
 429 Changes in version 2.11:
 430
 431 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 432
 433 * Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by
 434   having the compiler generate the information in sections called
 435   .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents.  The
 436   linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info
 437   section.
 438
 439 * The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or
 440   DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it.
 441
 442 * TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall.
 443
 444 * Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any
 445   specified section.
 446
 447 * Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables,
 448   enabled by --emit-relocs.  Some post-linkage optimization tools need
 449   this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform
 450   symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents
 451   (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.)
 452
 453 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality).
 454
 455 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 456
 457 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 458
 459 Changes in version 2.10:
 460
 461 * Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of
 462   sections into regions.
 463
 464 * Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections.
 465   It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are
 466   arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf,
 467   mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf.
 468   Others will ignore the option.
 469
 470 * Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file
 471   name or section name.
 472
 473 * Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u
 474   command-line option.
 475
 476 * Added ASSERT to the linker script language.
 477
 478 * Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over
 479   wildcard file names.
 480
 481 * Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only
 482   affects ELF shared library generation).
 483
 484 * The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name.
 485
 486 * Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a
 487   shared library.
 488
 489 * The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when
 490   using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old
 491   behaviour.
 492
 493 * Added --demangle and --no-demangle options.
 494
 495 Changes in version 2.9:
 496
 497 * Added SQUAD to the linker script language.
 498
 499 * New option --no-warn-mismatch.
 500
 501 * The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that
 502   are not placed in a specific memory region are placed.
 503
 504 Changes in version 2.8:
 505
 506 * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section
 507   names.
 508
 509 * The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF.
 510
 511 * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language.
 512
 513 * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language.
 514
 515 * MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language.
 516
 517 * The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language.
 518
 519 * New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section
 520   changes due to alignment of an input section.
 521
 522 * New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f.
 523
 524 Changes in version 2.7:
 525
 526 * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table.
 527
 528 * New option --wrap SYMBOL.
 529
 530 * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive.
 531
 532 * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script
 533   are not included in the output file.
 534
 535 * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses
 536   the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types.  This reduces the amount of debugging
 537   information generated.
 538
 539 Changes in version 2.6:
 540
 541 * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
 542 of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
 543 __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
 544 beginning and the end of the section.  This is used by glibc.
 545
 546   Addendum: Current versions of the linker (at least for version 2.18 onwards
 547 and possibly much earlier as well) place two restrictions on this feature:  The
 548 symbols are only implemented for orphaned sections, not for explicitly placed
 549 sections and they are PROVIDEd rather than being defined.
 550
 551 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
 552 contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
 553 not copied into the output file.  This is used by glibc.
 554
 555 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
 556 file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
 557 the section are displayed as an error message.  The section is not copied into
 558 the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link.  This is used by
 559 glibc.
 560
 561 * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
 562
 563 * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS.  It can
 564 also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker,
 565 will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e
 566 nor the -r option was used.
 567
 568 * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be
 569 searched at run time.  This overrides the default of building the list from the
 570 -L options.
 571
 572 * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
 573 enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
 574 only be defined once in the output file.  The --traditional-format switch will
 575 prevent this optimization.
 576
 577 Changes in version 2.5:
 578
 579 * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries.  It still can
 580 not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
 581 generate shared libraries.
 582
 583 * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
 584 (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris).  It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
 585 used to generate shared libraries.  Shared library generation is not well
 586 tested; please report any problems encountered.  The linker is now enabled for
 587 Solaris again.
 588
 589 * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
 590 Linux a.out shared libraries.  The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
 591
 592 * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code.  To use the new
 593 ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function.  So far,
 594 this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
 595 5), and HPPA ELF targets.
 596
 597 * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
 598 support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
 599 This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
 600
 601 * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
 602 it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
 603 file.  A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
 604 default linker script.
 605
 606 * The -warn-once option was added.  It causes the linker to only warn once per
 607 undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
 608
 609 * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code.  As with ELF, to
 610 use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function.  So
 611 far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
 612
 613 * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility.  The old -V
 614 behaviour is available via --verbose.
 615
 616 Changes in version 2.4:
 617
 618 * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor.  For a.out and ecoff
 619   formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
 620   and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
 621   before for formats not converted yet.
 622
 623 * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex.  This means
 624   oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
 625   separators.
 626
 627 * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law.  (No SOM support yet.)
 628
 629 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
 630
 631 * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
 632   libraries are not yet supported).
 633
 634 * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
 635
 636 * The linker is disabled for Solaris.  (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
 637   forgot to note it.)  Some of their C library routines don't work when
 638   statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
 639
 640 Changes in version 2.3:
 641
 642 * Weak symbols are now supported.
 643
 644 * ELF support has been added.  The linker has been bootstrapped on
 645   UnixWare and Solaris.
 646
 647 * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
 648
 649 Changes in version 2.2:
 650
 651 * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
 652   table size.  The effect of this is that files linked from many input
 653   files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
 654   static symbols) should be much smaller.
 655
 656 Changes in version 2.1:
 657
 658 * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
 659
 660 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
 661   other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.
 662
 663 \f
 664 Copyright (C) 2012-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 665
 666 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 667 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 668 notice and this notice are preserved.
 669
 670 Local variables:
 671 fill-column: 79
 672 End: