Commit | Line | Data |
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252b5132 | 1 | -*- text -*- |
cf88bb9f | 2 | |
c1446dba L |
3 | * Modify the Linux linker to seach /etc/ld.so.conf first before |
4 | checking default search directories for DT_NEEDED entries. | |
5 | ||
4b5bd4e7 DS |
6 | * PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files |
7 | passed directly to ld. | |
8 | ||
3c9b82ba NC |
9 | * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added. |
10 | ||
3e8a519c MM |
11 | * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra |
12 | switches can be read from <file>. | |
13 | ||
957d91c1 NC |
14 | Changes in 2.16: |
15 | ||
319850b4 JB |
16 | * Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF |
17 | specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option. | |
18 | ||
b717d30e JJ |
19 | * New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag |
20 | for input files listed inside of it. | |
21 | ||
e2243057 RS |
22 | * A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the |
23 | default sysroot location. It only applies to toolchains that were | |
24 | configured using --with-sysroot. | |
25 | ||
3ec57632 NC |
26 | * New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information |
27 | about a specified memory region. | |
28 | ||
7499d566 NC |
29 | * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech. |
30 | ||
ba916c8a MM |
31 | * Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to |
32 | override the base address for a segment from the command-line. | |
33 | ||
8fdd7217 NC |
34 | * ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared |
35 | object. | |
36 | ||
bcaa7b3e L |
37 | * Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script |
38 | language to permit sorting sections by section name or section | |
39 | maximum alignment. | |
40 | ||
41 | * Added a new linker command line switch, --sort-section name|alignment, | |
42 | to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment. | |
43 | ||
8fdd7217 NC |
44 | * ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag |
45 | should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags. | |
14b3c463 | 46 | |
1fe1f39c NC |
47 | * Support for the crx-elf target added. |
48 | ||
1a320fbb | 49 | * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added. |
1fe1f39c | 50 | |
2d643429 NC |
51 | * A new linker command line switch has been added which allows the hash table |
52 | size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument. This switch | |
53 | is --hash-size=<NUMBER>. Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is | |
54 | used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set | |
55 | to 1021. | |
56 | ||
35835446 JR |
57 | * Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols |
58 | that are defined in each section. This uses about 40% more memory for | |
59 | symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm. You can use the new | |
60 | --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option | |
61 | might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs. | |
62 | ||
2d643429 | 63 | Changes in 2.15: |
14b3c463 | 64 | |
8fdd7217 NC |
65 | * ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should |
66 | be added only when a shared library is referenced. | |
2d643429 | 67 | |
8fdd7217 | 68 | * PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual |
26d2d8a2 BF |
69 | addresses greater than 2 gigabytes. |
70 | ||
1b169501 BF |
71 | * DWARF 2 support for i386pe added. |
72 | ||
c894ddfb HPN |
73 | * The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that |
74 | is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used. | |
75 | ||
7a7f4e42 CD |
76 | * The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for |
77 | Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. | |
78 | ||
0949843d NC |
79 | * cr16c support added by NSC. |
80 | ||
6edf0760 NC |
81 | * m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas. |
82 | ||
560e09e9 NC |
83 | * Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols. The switch |
84 | --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it | |
85 | should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to | |
86 | make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors. | |
87 | ||
43c58ae6 CD |
88 | Changes in 2.14: |
89 | ||
e8fd7476 NC |
90 | * Added support for Xtensa architecture. |
91 | ||
9c8ebd6a DJ |
92 | * Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for |
93 | linking against a target filesystem image. | |
94 | ||
312b768e NC |
95 | * Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre |
96 | 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary | |
97 | file format. | |
98 | ||
63fd3b82 NC |
99 | * Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option. |
100 | ||
004d9caf NC |
101 | * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of |
102 | DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal. | |
026df7c5 | 103 | |
8e523c23 NC |
104 | * Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for |
105 | LIB_PATH. | |
106 | ||
7e392df6 NC |
107 | * ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson. |
108 | ||
cf88bb9f NC |
109 | * IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov. |
110 | ||
2cbb2eef NC |
111 | Changes in 2.13: |
112 | ||
113 | * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400 | |
114 | and FR500 included. | |
7d553a40 | 115 | |
37020578 JT |
116 | Changes in version 2.13: |
117 | ||
118 | * DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas. | |
119 | ||
9a66911f NC |
120 | Changes in version 2.12: |
121 | ||
49fda6c8 HPN |
122 | * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson. |
123 | ||
3b16e843 NC |
124 | * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores. |
125 | ||
8bd621d8 AM |
126 | * Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables |
127 | production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in | |
128 | non-sharable applications. | |
5b343f5a | 129 | |
db6751f2 JJ |
130 | * Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic |
131 | relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker | |
132 | can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache. | |
133 | ||
134 | * Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek. | |
135 | ||
9a66911f NC |
136 | Changes in version 2.11: |
137 | ||
b8355149 JH |
138 | * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs. |
139 | ||
18e03609 NC |
140 | * Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by |
141 | having the compiler generate the information in sections called | |
142 | .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The | |
143 | linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info | |
144 | section. | |
252b5132 | 145 | |
ec4eb78a L |
146 | * The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or |
147 | DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it. | |
148 | ||
2d30b3da TW |
149 | * TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall. |
150 | ||
176355da NC |
151 | * Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any |
152 | specified section. | |
153 | ||
a712da20 NC |
154 | * Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables, |
155 | enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need | |
156 | this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform | |
157 | symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents | |
158 | (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.) | |
159 | ||
22b36938 JE |
160 | * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality). |
161 | ||
5bcac8a4 HPN |
162 | * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series). |
163 | ||
500800ca NC |
164 | * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff. |
165 | ||
919e4093 AM |
166 | Changes in version 2.10: |
167 | ||
5948916f TW |
168 | * Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of |
169 | sections into regions. | |
170 | ||
252b5132 RH |
171 | * Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections. |
172 | It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are | |
4667035e AM |
173 | arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf, |
174 | mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf. | |
987fd5b4 | 175 | Others will ignore the option. |
252b5132 RH |
176 | |
177 | * Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file | |
178 | name or section name. | |
179 | ||
180 | * Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u | |
181 | command-line option. | |
182 | ||
183 | * Added ASSERT to the linker script language. | |
184 | ||
277c9afe ILT |
185 | * Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over |
186 | wildcard file names. | |
187 | ||
252b5132 | 188 | * Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only |
500800ca | 189 | affects ELF shared library generation). |
252b5132 RH |
190 | |
191 | * The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name. | |
192 | ||
2575273d ILT |
193 | * Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a |
194 | shared library. | |
195 | ||
9b1d3b78 ILT |
196 | * The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when |
197 | using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old | |
198 | behaviour. | |
199 | ||
252b5132 RH |
200 | * Added --demangle and --no-demangle options. |
201 | ||
202 | Changes in version 2.9: | |
203 | ||
204 | * Added SQUAD to the linker script language. | |
205 | ||
206 | * New option --no-warn-mismatch. | |
207 | ||
208 | * The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that | |
209 | are not placed in a specific memory region are placed. | |
210 | ||
211 | Changes in version 2.8: | |
212 | ||
213 | * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section | |
214 | names. | |
215 | ||
216 | * The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF. | |
217 | ||
218 | * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language. | |
219 | ||
220 | * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language. | |
221 | ||
222 | * MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language. | |
223 | ||
224 | * The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language. | |
225 | ||
226 | * New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section | |
227 | changes due to alignment of an input section. | |
228 | ||
229 | * New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f. | |
230 | ||
231 | Changes in version 2.7: | |
232 | ||
233 | * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table. | |
234 | ||
235 | * New option --wrap SYMBOL. | |
236 | ||
237 | * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive. | |
238 | ||
239 | * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script | |
240 | are not included in the output file. | |
241 | ||
242 | * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses | |
243 | the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging | |
244 | information generated. | |
245 | ||
246 | Changes in version 2.6: | |
247 | ||
248 | * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true | |
249 | of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols | |
250 | __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the | |
251 | beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc. | |
252 | ||
253 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the | |
254 | contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is | |
255 | not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc. | |
256 | ||
257 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input | |
258 | file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of | |
259 | the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into | |
1049f94e | 260 | the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link. This is used by |
252b5132 RH |
261 | glibc. |
262 | ||
263 | * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file. | |
264 | ||
265 | * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can | |
266 | also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker, | |
267 | will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e | |
268 | nor the -r option was used. | |
269 | ||
270 | * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be | |
271 | searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the | |
272 | -L options. | |
273 | ||
274 | * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and | |
275 | enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will | |
276 | only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will | |
277 | prevent this optimization. | |
278 | ||
279 | Changes in version 2.5: | |
280 | ||
281 | * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can | |
282 | not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to | |
07f3b6ad | 283 | generate shared libraries. |
252b5132 RH |
284 | |
285 | * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386 | |
286 | (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be | |
287 | used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well | |
288 | tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for | |
289 | Solaris again. | |
290 | ||
291 | * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against | |
292 | Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries. | |
293 | ||
294 | * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new | |
295 | ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far, | |
296 | this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix | |
297 | 5), and HPPA ELF targets. | |
298 | ||
299 | * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to | |
300 | support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive. | |
301 | This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ). | |
302 | ||
303 | * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize | |
304 | it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script | |
305 | file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the | |
306 | default linker script. | |
307 | ||
308 | * The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per | |
309 | undefined symbol, rather than once per reference. | |
310 | ||
311 | * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to | |
312 | use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So | |
313 | far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets. | |
314 | ||
315 | * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V | |
316 | behaviour is available via --verbose. | |
317 | ||
318 | Changes in version 2.4: | |
319 | ||
320 | * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff | |
321 | formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time | |
322 | and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than | |
323 | before for formats not converted yet. | |
324 | ||
325 | * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means | |
326 | oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument | |
327 | separators. | |
328 | ||
329 | * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.) | |
330 | ||
331 | * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie. | |
332 | ||
333 | * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared | |
334 | libraries are not yet supported). | |
335 | ||
336 | * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well. | |
337 | ||
338 | * The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just | |
339 | forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when | |
340 | statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet. | |
341 | ||
342 | Changes in version 2.3: | |
343 | ||
344 | * Weak symbols are now supported. | |
345 | ||
346 | * ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on | |
347 | UnixWare and Solaris. | |
348 | ||
349 | * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only). | |
350 | ||
351 | Changes in version 2.2: | |
352 | ||
353 | * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string | |
354 | table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input | |
355 | files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical | |
356 | static symbols) should be much smaller. | |
357 | ||
358 | Changes in version 2.1: | |
359 | ||
360 | * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented. | |
361 | ||
362 | * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the | |
363 | other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. | |
364 | ||
365 | \f | |
366 | Local variables: | |
367 | fill-column: 79 | |
368 | End: |