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[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / ld / NEWS

-*- 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.

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