| 1 | -*- text -*- |
| 2 | |
| 3 | Changes since version 2.5: |
| 4 | |
| 5 | * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true |
| 6 | of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols |
| 7 | __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the |
| 8 | beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the |
| 11 | contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is |
| 12 | not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input |
| 15 | file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of |
| 16 | the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into |
| 17 | the output file, unless doing a relocateable or shared link. This is used by |
| 18 | glibc. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can |
| 23 | also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries. The native SunOS linker will do this |
| 24 | when linking code which has an undefined symbol, but the GNU linker requires |
| 25 | the -shared option. For convenience when used with gcc -shared, the GNU linker |
| 26 | will also create a shared library when given the -assert pure-text option, |
| 27 | although this is not really what -assert pure-text should mean. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and |
| 30 | enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will |
| 31 | only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will |
| 32 | prevent this optimization. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | Changes since version 2.4: |
| 35 | |
| 36 | * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can |
| 37 | not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to |
| 38 | generate shared libaries. |
| 39 | |
| 40 | * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386 |
| 41 | (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be |
| 42 | used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well |
| 43 | tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for |
| 44 | Solaris again. |
| 45 | |
| 46 | * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against |
| 47 | Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new |
| 50 | ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far, |
| 51 | this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix |
| 52 | 5), and HPPA ELF targets. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to |
| 55 | support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive. |
| 56 | This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ). |
| 57 | |
| 58 | * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize |
| 59 | it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script |
| 60 | file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the |
| 61 | default linker script. |
| 62 | |
| 63 | * The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per |
| 64 | undefined symbol, rather than once per reference. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to |
| 67 | use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So |
| 68 | far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V |
| 71 | behaviour is available via --verbose. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | Changes since version 2.3: |
| 74 | |
| 75 | * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff |
| 76 | formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time |
| 77 | and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than |
| 78 | before for formats not converted yet. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means |
| 81 | oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument |
| 82 | separators. |
| 83 | |
| 84 | * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.) |
| 85 | |
| 86 | * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie. |
| 87 | |
| 88 | * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared |
| 89 | libraries are not yet supported). |
| 90 | |
| 91 | * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well. |
| 92 | |
| 93 | * The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just |
| 94 | forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when |
| 95 | statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet. |
| 96 | |
| 97 | Changes since version 2.2: |
| 98 | |
| 99 | * Weak symbols are now supported. |
| 100 | |
| 101 | * ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on |
| 102 | UnixWare and Solaris. |
| 103 | |
| 104 | * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only). |
| 105 | |
| 106 | Changes since version 2.1: |
| 107 | |
| 108 | * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string |
| 109 | table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input |
| 110 | files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical |
| 111 | static symbols) should be much smaller. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | Changes since version 2.0: |
| 114 | |
| 115 | * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the |
| 118 | other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | \f |
| 121 | Local variables: |
| 122 | fill-column: 79 |
| 123 | End: |