An assignment to dot in an output section that allocates space of
course keeps the output section. Here, I'm changing the behaviour for
assignments that don't allocate space. The idea is not so much to
allow people to force output of an empty section with ". = .", but
to fix cases where an otherwise empty section has padding added by an
alignment expression that changes with relaxation or .eh_frame
editing. Such a section might have zero size before relaxation and so
be stripped incorrectly.
ld/
* ld.texinfo (Output Section Discarding): Mention assigning to dot
as a way of keeping otherwise empty sections.
* ldexp.c (is_dot, is_value, is_sym_value, is_dot_ne_0,
is_dot_plus_0, is_align_conditional): New predicates.
(exp_fold_tree_1): Set SEC_KEEP when assigning to dot inside an
output section, except for some special cases.
* scripttempl/elfmicroblaze.sc: Use canonical form to align at
end of .heap and .stack.
ld/testsuite/
* ld-shared/elf-offset.ld: Align end of .bss with canonical form
of ALIGN that allows an empty .bss to be removed.
* ld-arm/arm-dyn.ld: Likewise.
* ld-arm/arm-lib.ld: Likewise.
* ld-elfvsb/elf-offset.ld: Likewise.
* ld-mips-elf/mips-dyn.ld: Likewise.
* ld-mips-elf/mips-lib.ld: Likewise.
* ld-arm/arm-no-rel-plt.ld: Remove duplicate ALIGN.
* ld-powerpc/vle-multiseg-1.ld: Remove ALIGN at start of section.
ALIGN address of section instead.
* ld-powerpc/vle-multiseg-2.ld: Likewise.
* ld-powerpc/vle-multiseg-3.ld: Likewise.
* ld-powerpc/vle-multiseg-4.ld: Likewise.
* ld-powerpc/vle-multiseg-6.ld: Likewise.
* ld-scripts/empty-aligned.d: Check section headers not program
headers. Remove xfail and notarget.
* ld-scripts/empty-aligned.t: Use canonical ALIGN for end of .text2.
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README for LD
This is the GNU linker. It is distributed with other "binary
utilities" which should be in ../binutils. See ../binutils/README for
more general notes, including where to send bug reports.
There are many features of the linker:
* The linker uses a Binary File Descriptor library (../bfd)
that it uses to read and write object files. This helps
insulate the linker itself from the format of object files.
* The linker supports a number of different object file
formats. It can even handle multiple formats at once:
Read two input formats and write a third.
* The linker can be configured for cross-linking.
* The linker supports a control language.
* There is a user manual (ld.texinfo), as well as the
beginnings of an internals manual (ldint.texinfo).
Installation
============
See ../binutils/README.
If you want to make a cross-linker, you may want to specify
a different search path of -lfoo libraries than the default.
You can do this by setting the LIB_PATH variable in ./Makefile
or using the --with-lib-path configure switch.
To build just the linker, make the target all-ld from the top level
directory (one directory above this one).
Porting to a new target
=======================
See the ldint.texinfo manual.
Reporting bugs etc
===========================
See ../binutils/README.
Known problems
==============
The Solaris linker normally exports all dynamic symbols from an
executable. The GNU linker does not do this by default. This is
because the GNU linker tries to present the same interface for all
similar targets (in this case, all native ELF targets). This does not
matter for normal programs, but it can make a difference for programs
which try to dlopen an executable, such as PERL or Tcl. You can make
the GNU linker export all dynamic symbols with the -E or
--export-dynamic command line option.
HP/UX 9.01 has a shell bug that causes the linker scripts to be
generated incorrectly. The symptom of this appears to be "fatal error
- scanner input buffer overflow" error messages. There are various
workarounds to this:
* Build and install bash, and build with "make SHELL=bash".
* Update to a version of HP/UX with a working shell (e.g., 9.05).
* Replace "(. ${srcdir}/scripttempl/${SCRIPT_NAME}.sc)" in
genscripts.sh with "sh ${srcdir}..." (no parens) and make sure the
emulparams script used exports any shell variables it sets.
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.
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