124 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
124 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
-*- text -*-
|
||
|
||
Changes since version 2.5:
|
||
|
||
* When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
|
||
of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
|
||
__start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
|
||
beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc.
|
||
|
||
* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
|
||
contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
|
||
not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc.
|
||
|
||
* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
|
||
file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
|
||
the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into
|
||
the output file, unless doing a relocateable or shared link. This is used by
|
||
glibc.
|
||
|
||
* New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
|
||
|
||
* The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can
|
||
also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries. The native SunOS linker will do this
|
||
when linking code which has an undefined symbol, but the GNU linker requires
|
||
the -shared option. For convenience when used with gcc -shared, the GNU linker
|
||
will also create a shared library when given the -assert pure-text option,
|
||
although this is not really what -assert pure-text should mean.
|
||
|
||
* The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
|
||
enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
|
||
only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will
|
||
prevent this optimization.
|
||
|
||
Changes since version 2.4:
|
||
|
||
* The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can
|
||
not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
|
||
generate shared libaries.
|
||
|
||
* The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
|
||
(UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
|
||
used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well
|
||
tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for
|
||
Solaris again.
|
||
|
||
* Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
|
||
Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
|
||
|
||
* The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new
|
||
ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far,
|
||
this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
|
||
5), and HPPA ELF targets.
|
||
|
||
* The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
|
||
support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
|
||
This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
|
||
|
||
* When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
|
||
it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
|
||
file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
|
||
default linker script.
|
||
|
||
* The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per
|
||
undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
|
||
|
||
* The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to
|
||
use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So
|
||
far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
|
||
|
||
* The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V
|
||
behaviour is available via --verbose.
|
||
|
||
Changes since version 2.3:
|
||
|
||
* New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff
|
||
formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
|
||
and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
|
||
before for formats not converted yet.
|
||
|
||
* Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means
|
||
oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
|
||
separators.
|
||
|
||
* HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.)
|
||
|
||
* Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
|
||
|
||
* Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
|
||
libraries are not yet supported).
|
||
|
||
* COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
|
||
|
||
* The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
|
||
forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when
|
||
statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
|
||
|
||
Changes since version 2.2:
|
||
|
||
* Weak symbols are now supported.
|
||
|
||
* ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on
|
||
UnixWare and Solaris.
|
||
|
||
* Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
|
||
|
||
Changes since version 2.1:
|
||
|
||
* The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
|
||
table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input
|
||
files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
|
||
static symbols) should be much smaller.
|
||
|
||
Changes since version 2.0:
|
||
|
||
* The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
|
||
|
||
* There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
|
||
other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Local variables:
|
||
fill-column: 79
|
||
End:
|