| 1 | -*- text -*- |
| 2 | Changes in 2.18: |
| 3 | |
| 4 | * Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public |
| 5 | License. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | * ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier |
| 8 | embedded in a note section. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | * Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | * -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo, |
| 13 | without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | * Add a new command line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE' |
| 16 | which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker |
| 17 | script. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | * ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++ |
| 20 | operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data, |
| 21 | builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the |
| 22 | dynamic list. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | * Add support for Score target. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | * ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols |
| 29 | whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the |
| 30 | shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the |
| 31 | symbol table in the executable. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | * The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from |
| 34 | being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as |
| 35 | the previous output section in the same region. This is a more useful |
| 36 | default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA |
| 37 | differing from the VMA for some sections. |
| 38 | |
| 39 | * New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge |
| 40 | collection. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | * ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current |
| 43 | VFP11 coprocessors. |
| 44 | |
| 45 | Changes in 2.17: |
| 46 | |
| 47 | * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | * Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order. |
| 50 | Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before |
| 51 | searching the default directories, rather than vice versa. |
| 52 | Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | * PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files |
| 55 | passed directly to ld. |
| 56 | |
| 57 | * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra |
| 60 | switches can be read from <file>. |
| 61 | |
| 62 | Changes in 2.16: |
| 63 | |
| 64 | * Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF |
| 65 | specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option. |
| 66 | |
| 67 | * New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag |
| 68 | for input files listed inside of it. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | * A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the |
| 71 | default sysroot location. It only applies to toolchains that were |
| 72 | configured using --with-sysroot. |
| 73 | |
| 74 | * New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information |
| 75 | about a specified memory region. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech. |
| 78 | |
| 79 | * Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to |
| 80 | override the base address for a segment from the command-line. |
| 81 | |
| 82 | * ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared |
| 83 | object. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | * Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script |
| 86 | language to permit sorting sections by section name or section |
| 87 | maximum alignment. |
| 88 | |
| 89 | * Added a new linker command line switch, --sort-section name|alignment, |
| 90 | to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment. |
| 91 | |
| 92 | * ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag |
| 93 | should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags. |
| 94 | |
| 95 | * Support for the crx-elf target added. |
| 96 | |
| 97 | * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | * A new linker command line switch has been added which allows the hash table |
| 100 | size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument. This switch |
| 101 | is --hash-size=<NUMBER>. Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is |
| 102 | used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set |
| 103 | to 1021. |
| 104 | |
| 105 | * Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols |
| 106 | that are defined in each section. This uses about 40% more memory for |
| 107 | symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm. You can use the new |
| 108 | --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option |
| 109 | might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs. |
| 110 | |
| 111 | Changes in 2.15: |
| 112 | |
| 113 | * ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should |
| 114 | be added only when a shared library is referenced. |
| 115 | |
| 116 | * PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual |
| 117 | addresses greater than 2 gigabytes. |
| 118 | |
| 119 | * DWARF 2 support for i386pe added. |
| 120 | |
| 121 | * The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that |
| 122 | is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used. |
| 123 | |
| 124 | * The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for |
| 125 | Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. |
| 126 | |
| 127 | * cr16c support added by NSC. |
| 128 | |
| 129 | * m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas. |
| 130 | |
| 131 | * Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols. The switch |
| 132 | --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it |
| 133 | should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to |
| 134 | make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors. |
| 135 | |
| 136 | Changes in 2.14: |
| 137 | |
| 138 | * Added support for Xtensa architecture. |
| 139 | |
| 140 | * Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for |
| 141 | linking against a target filesystem image. |
| 142 | |
| 143 | * Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre |
| 144 | 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary |
| 145 | file format. |
| 146 | |
| 147 | * Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option. |
| 148 | |
| 149 | * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of |
| 150 | DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal. |
| 151 | |
| 152 | * Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for |
| 153 | LIB_PATH. |
| 154 | |
| 155 | * ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson. |
| 156 | |
| 157 | * IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov. |
| 158 | |
| 159 | Changes in 2.13: |
| 160 | |
| 161 | * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400 |
| 162 | and FR500 included. |
| 163 | |
| 164 | Changes in version 2.13: |
| 165 | |
| 166 | * DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas. |
| 167 | |
| 168 | Changes in version 2.12: |
| 169 | |
| 170 | * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson. |
| 171 | |
| 172 | * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores. |
| 173 | |
| 174 | * Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables |
| 175 | production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in |
| 176 | non-sharable applications. |
| 177 | |
| 178 | * Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic |
| 179 | relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker |
| 180 | can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache. |
| 181 | |
| 182 | * Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek. |
| 183 | |
| 184 | Changes in version 2.11: |
| 185 | |
| 186 | * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs. |
| 187 | |
| 188 | * Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by |
| 189 | having the compiler generate the information in sections called |
| 190 | .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The |
| 191 | linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info |
| 192 | section. |
| 193 | |
| 194 | * The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or |
| 195 | DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | * TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall. |
| 198 | |
| 199 | * Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any |
| 200 | specified section. |
| 201 | |
| 202 | * Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables, |
| 203 | enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need |
| 204 | this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform |
| 205 | symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents |
| 206 | (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.) |
| 207 | |
| 208 | * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality). |
| 209 | |
| 210 | * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series). |
| 211 | |
| 212 | * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff. |
| 213 | |
| 214 | Changes in version 2.10: |
| 215 | |
| 216 | * Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of |
| 217 | sections into regions. |
| 218 | |
| 219 | * Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections. |
| 220 | It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are |
| 221 | arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf, |
| 222 | mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf. |
| 223 | Others will ignore the option. |
| 224 | |
| 225 | * Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file |
| 226 | name or section name. |
| 227 | |
| 228 | * Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u |
| 229 | command-line option. |
| 230 | |
| 231 | * Added ASSERT to the linker script language. |
| 232 | |
| 233 | * Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over |
| 234 | wildcard file names. |
| 235 | |
| 236 | * Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only |
| 237 | affects ELF shared library generation). |
| 238 | |
| 239 | * The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name. |
| 240 | |
| 241 | * Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a |
| 242 | shared library. |
| 243 | |
| 244 | * The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when |
| 245 | using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old |
| 246 | behaviour. |
| 247 | |
| 248 | * Added --demangle and --no-demangle options. |
| 249 | |
| 250 | Changes in version 2.9: |
| 251 | |
| 252 | * Added SQUAD to the linker script language. |
| 253 | |
| 254 | * New option --no-warn-mismatch. |
| 255 | |
| 256 | * The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that |
| 257 | are not placed in a specific memory region are placed. |
| 258 | |
| 259 | Changes in version 2.8: |
| 260 | |
| 261 | * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section |
| 262 | names. |
| 263 | |
| 264 | * The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF. |
| 265 | |
| 266 | * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language. |
| 267 | |
| 268 | * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language. |
| 269 | |
| 270 | * MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language. |
| 271 | |
| 272 | * The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language. |
| 273 | |
| 274 | * New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section |
| 275 | changes due to alignment of an input section. |
| 276 | |
| 277 | * New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f. |
| 278 | |
| 279 | Changes in version 2.7: |
| 280 | |
| 281 | * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table. |
| 282 | |
| 283 | * New option --wrap SYMBOL. |
| 284 | |
| 285 | * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive. |
| 286 | |
| 287 | * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script |
| 288 | are not included in the output file. |
| 289 | |
| 290 | * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses |
| 291 | the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging |
| 292 | information generated. |
| 293 | |
| 294 | Changes in version 2.6: |
| 295 | |
| 296 | * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true |
| 297 | of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols |
| 298 | __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the |
| 299 | beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc. |
| 300 | |
| 301 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the |
| 302 | contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is |
| 303 | not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc. |
| 304 | |
| 305 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input |
| 306 | file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of |
| 307 | the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into |
| 308 | the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link. This is used by |
| 309 | glibc. |
| 310 | |
| 311 | * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file. |
| 312 | |
| 313 | * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can |
| 314 | also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker, |
| 315 | will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e |
| 316 | nor the -r option was used. |
| 317 | |
| 318 | * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be |
| 319 | searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the |
| 320 | -L options. |
| 321 | |
| 322 | * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and |
| 323 | enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will |
| 324 | only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will |
| 325 | prevent this optimization. |
| 326 | |
| 327 | Changes in version 2.5: |
| 328 | |
| 329 | * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can |
| 330 | not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to |
| 331 | generate shared libraries. |
| 332 | |
| 333 | * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386 |
| 334 | (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be |
| 335 | used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well |
| 336 | tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for |
| 337 | Solaris again. |
| 338 | |
| 339 | * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against |
| 340 | Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries. |
| 341 | |
| 342 | * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new |
| 343 | ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far, |
| 344 | this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix |
| 345 | 5), and HPPA ELF targets. |
| 346 | |
| 347 | * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to |
| 348 | support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive. |
| 349 | This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ). |
| 350 | |
| 351 | * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize |
| 352 | it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script |
| 353 | file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the |
| 354 | default linker script. |
| 355 | |
| 356 | * The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per |
| 357 | undefined symbol, rather than once per reference. |
| 358 | |
| 359 | * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to |
| 360 | use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So |
| 361 | far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets. |
| 362 | |
| 363 | * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V |
| 364 | behaviour is available via --verbose. |
| 365 | |
| 366 | Changes in version 2.4: |
| 367 | |
| 368 | * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff |
| 369 | formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time |
| 370 | and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than |
| 371 | before for formats not converted yet. |
| 372 | |
| 373 | * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means |
| 374 | oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument |
| 375 | separators. |
| 376 | |
| 377 | * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.) |
| 378 | |
| 379 | * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie. |
| 380 | |
| 381 | * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared |
| 382 | libraries are not yet supported). |
| 383 | |
| 384 | * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well. |
| 385 | |
| 386 | * The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just |
| 387 | forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when |
| 388 | statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet. |
| 389 | |
| 390 | Changes in version 2.3: |
| 391 | |
| 392 | * Weak symbols are now supported. |
| 393 | |
| 394 | * ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on |
| 395 | UnixWare and Solaris. |
| 396 | |
| 397 | * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only). |
| 398 | |
| 399 | Changes in version 2.2: |
| 400 | |
| 401 | * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string |
| 402 | table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input |
| 403 | files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical |
| 404 | static symbols) should be much smaller. |
| 405 | |
| 406 | Changes in version 2.1: |
| 407 | |
| 408 | * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented. |
| 409 | |
| 410 | * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the |
| 411 | other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. |
| 412 | |
| 413 | \f |
| 414 | Local variables: |
| 415 | fill-column: 79 |
| 416 | End: |