ld/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
   4
   5 * When configuring for arc*-*-linux* targets the default linker emulation will
   6   change if --with-cpu=nps400 is used at configure time.
   7
   8 * Improve assignment of LMAs to orphan sections in some edge cases where a
   9   mixture of both AT>LMA_REGION and AT(LMA) are used.
  10
  11 Changes in 2.28:
  12
  13 * The EXCLUDE_FILE linker script construct can now be applied outside of the
  14   section list in order for the exclusions to apply over all input sections in
  15   the list.
  16
  17 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  18
  19 * The command line option --no-eh-frame-hdr can now be used in ELF based
  20   linkers to disable the automatic generation of .eh_frame_hdr sections.
  21
  22 * Add --in-implib=<infile> to the ARM linker to enable specifying a set of
  23   Secure Gateway veneers that must exist in the output import library specified
  24   by --out-implib=<outfile> and the address they must have.  As such,
  25   --in-implib is only supported in combination with --cmse-implib.
  26
  27 * Extended the --out-implib=<file> option, previously restricted to x86 PE
  28   targets, to any ELF based target.  This allows the generation of an import
  29   library for an ELF executable, which can then be used by another application
  30   to link against the executable.
  31
  32 Changes in 2.27:
  33
  34 * Add a configure option --enable-relro to decide whether -z relro should
  35   be enabled in ELF linker by default.  Default to yes for all Linux
  36   targets except FRV, HPPA, IA64 and MIPS.
  37
  38 * Support for -z noreloc-overflow in the x86-64 ELF linker to disable
  39   relocation overflow check.
  40
  41 * Add -z common/-z nocommon options for ELF targets to control whether to
  42   convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type during a relocatable link.
  43
  44 * Support for -z nodynamic-undefined-weak in the x86 ELF linker, which
  45   avoids dynamic relocations against undefined weak symbols in executable.
  46
  47 * The NOCROSSREFSTO command was added to the linker script language.
  48
  49 * Add --no-apply-dynamic-relocs to the AArch64 linker to do not apply link-time
  50   values for dynamic relocations.
  51
  52 Changes in 2.26:
  53
  54 * Add --fix-stm32l4xx-629360 to the ARM linker to enable a link-time
  55   workaround for a bug in the bus matrix / memory controller for some of
  56   the STM32 Cortex-M4 based products (STM32L4xx)
  57
  58 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,ld} to
  59   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
  60
  61 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
  62
  63 * Experimental support for linker garbage collection (--gc-sections)
  64   has been enabled for COFF and PE based targets.
  65
  66 * New command line option for ELF targets to compress DWARF debug
  67   sections, --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi].
  68
  69 * New command line option, --orphan-handling=[place|warn|error|discard], to
  70   adjust how orphan sections are handled.  The default is 'place' which gives
  71   the current behaviour, 'warn' and 'error' issue a warning or error
  72   respectively when orphan sections are found, and 'discard' will discard all
  73   orphan sections.
  74
  75 * Add support for LLVM plugin.
  76
  77 * Add --print-memory-usage option to report memory blocks usage.
  78
  79 * Add --require-defined option, it's like --undefined except the new symbol
  80   must be defined by the end of the link.
  81
  82 Changes in 2.25:
  83
  84 * PE binaries now once again contain real timestamps by default.  To disable
  85   the inclusion of a timestamp in a PE binary, use the --no-insert-timestamp
  86   command line option.
  87
  88 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
  89
  90 * Add support for the --build-id command line option to COFF based targets.
  91
  92 * x86/x86_64 pe-coff now supports the --build-id option.
  93
  94 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
  95
  96 Changes in 2.24:
  97
  98 * Add LOG2CEIL() builtin function to the linker script language
  99
 100 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 101
 102 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 103
 104 * Add support for the V850E3V5 architecture.
 105
 106 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 107
 108 * --enable-new-dtags no longer generates old dtags in addition to new dtags.
 109
 110 * Remove linker support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 111
 112 * Add ALIGN_WITH_INPUT to the linker script language to force the alignment of
 113   an output section to use the maximum alignment of all its input sections.
 114
 115 Changes in 2.23:
 116
 117 * Enable compressed debug section feature for x86/x86_64 pe-coff.
 118
 119 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 120
 121 * Added SORT_NONE to the linker script language to disable section sorting.
 122
 123 * Add a linker-provided symbol when producing ELF output, '__ehdr_start'
 124   to point to the ELF file header (and nearby program headers) in the
 125   program's memory image.
 126
 127 * Add support for S12X processor.
 128
 129 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 130
 131 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 132
 133 * Add option -f FILE on AIX (for response file).
 134
 135 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 136
 137 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 138
 139 Changes in 2.22:
 140
 141 * --copy-dt-needed-entries is no longer enabled by default.  Instead
 142   --no-copy-dt-needed-entries is the default.
 143
 144 * INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS has been added to the linker script language
 145   to allow selection of input sections by section header section flags.
 146
 147 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 148
 149 * Added SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY to the linker script language to permit
 150   sorting sections by numerical value of the GCC init_priority attribute
 151   encoded in the section name.
 152
 153 Changes in 2.21:
 154
 155 * Linker script expression evaluation is somewhat more sane.  This may
 156   break scripts that depend on quirks of the old expression evaluation.
 157
 158 * Turn off underscoring for x86_64 PE+-COFF targets.  For old behavior the
 159   option --enable-leading-mingw64-underscores can be used on configure of
 160   bfd.
 161
 162 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 163
 164 * --add-needed renamed to --copy-dt-needed-entries in order to avoid confusion
 165   with --as-needed option.
 166
 167 * Extend .def file syntax by '== <ID>' for imports and exports. This allows
 168   to alias the import/export table name written in PE image.
 169
 170 * Add --exclude-all-symbols option to PE based linkers.  This prevents all
 171   symbols from automatically being exported.
 172
 173 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 174
 175 * Add support for alpha-vms target.
 176
 177 Changes in 2.20:
 178
 179 * GNU/Linux targets now support the STB_GNU_UNIQUE symbol binding.  This is a
 180   GNU extension to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings.  The binding will
 181   be passed on to the dynamic linker which will make sure that in the entire
 182   process there is just one symbol with the given name and type in use.
 183
 184 * PE targets now support a GNU extension to allow the alignment of common
 185   common symbols to be specified.  This support uses custom options in
 186   the .drectve section, which will be disregarded by the native tools.
 187
 188 * PE targets now add primitive support for ELF version scripts; symbols
 189   are not versioned, but the local and global symbol visibility directives
 190   are respected when filtering symbols in auto-export mode.
 191
 192 * New option --no-export-dynamic to undo the effect of the -E and
 193   --export-dynamic options.
 194
 195 * ELF: --warn-alternate-em option to warn if an object has alternate
 196   ELF machine code.
 197
 198 * New script function REGION_ALIAS to add alias names to memory regions.
 199
 200 * PE targets no longer make use of the long section names PE extension to
 201   the COFF format when generating executable images, by default.  The old
 202   (slightly non-conformant) behaviour can still be invoked by using the
 203   new '--enable-long-section-names' command-line option.  It is also enabled
 204   automatically in the presence of un-stripped debug information, as GDB
 205   needs to be able to find the debug info sections by their full names.
 206
 207 * For GNU/Linux systems the linker will now avoid processing any relocations
 208   made against symbols of the STT_GNU_IFUNC type and instead emit them into
 209   the resulting binary for processing by the loader.
 210
 211 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 212   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 213   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 214   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 215
 216 * Add a new command line option, -Ttext-segment ADDR, for ELF targets
 217   to set the address of the first byte of the text segment.
 218
 219 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 220
 221 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to ld for PE targets to
 222   allow fallback to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 223
 224 * Windows PE systems now support a new --exclude-modules-for-implib option,
 225   allowing users to partition object files and archive members between a DLL
 226   and its associated import library as they are generated during linking.
 227
 228 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 229
 230 * Add CR16 ELF --embedded-relocs (used to embedded relocations into binaries
 231   for Embedded-PIC code) option.
 232
 233 * Add to the PE/PE+ targets the support of two different kinds of
 234   pseudo-relocations.  They can be selected by the switches
 235   --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v1 and --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v2.
 236   For the switch --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc it uses for 32-bit
 237   runtime pseudo relocation version one, for 64-bit the version two.
 238
 239 Changes in 2.19:
 240
 241 * Linker scripts support a new INSERT command that makes it easier to
 242   augment the default script.
 243
 244 * Linker script input section filespecs may now specify a file within an
 245   archive by writing "archive:file".
 246
 247 * The --sort-common switch now has an optional argument which specifies the
 248   direction of sorting.
 249
 250 * The M68K linker now supports multiple GOT generation schemes controlled via
 251   the --got=<type> command line option.
 252
 253 * The ARM EABI linker will now generate stubs for function calls to symbols
 254   that are too far away.  The placement of the stubs is controlled by a new
 255   linker command line option: --stub-group-size=N.
 256
 257 Changes in 2.18:
 258
 259 * Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public
 260   License.
 261
 262 * ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier
 263   embedded in a note section.
 264
 265 * Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target.
 266
 267 * -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo,
 268   without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so.
 269
 270 * Add a new command line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE'
 271   which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker
 272   script.
 273
 274 * ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++
 275   operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data,
 276   builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the
 277   dynamic list.
 278
 279 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 280
 281 * Add support for Score target.
 282
 283 * ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols
 284   whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the
 285   shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the
 286   symbol table in the executable.
 287
 288 * The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from
 289   being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as
 290   the previous output section in the same region.  This is a more useful
 291   default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA
 292   differing from the VMA for some sections.
 293
 294 * New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge
 295   collection.
 296
 297 * ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current
 298   VFP11 coprocessors.
 299
 300 Changes in 2.17:
 301
 302 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 303
 304 * Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order.
 305   Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before
 306   searching the default directories, rather than vice versa.
 307   Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf.
 308
 309 * PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files
 310   passed directly to ld.
 311
 312 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 313
 314 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 315   switches can be read from <file>.
 316
 317 Changes in 2.16:
 318
 319 * Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF
 320   specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option.
 321
 322 * New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag
 323   for input files listed inside of it.
 324
 325 * A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the
 326   default sysroot location.  It only applies to toolchains that were
 327   configured using --with-sysroot.
 328
 329 * New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information
 330   about a specified memory region.
 331
 332 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 333
 334 * Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to
 335   override the base address for a segment from the command-line.
 336
 337 * ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared
 338   object.
 339
 340 * Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script
 341   language to permit sorting sections by section name or section
 342   maximum alignment.
 343
 344 * Added a new linker command line switch, --sort-section name|alignment,
 345   to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment.
 346
 347 * ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag
 348   should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags.
 349
 350 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 351
 352 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 353
 354 * A new linker command line switch has been added which allows the hash table
 355   size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument.  This switch
 356   is --hash-size=<NUMBER>.  Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is
 357   used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set
 358   to 1021.
 359
 360 * Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols
 361   that are defined in each section.  This uses about 40% more memory for
 362   symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm.  You can use the new
 363   --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option
 364   might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs.
 365
 366 Changes in 2.15:
 367
 368 * ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should
 369   be added only when a shared library is referenced.
 370
 371 * PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual
 372   addresses greater than 2 gigabytes.
 373
 374 * DWARF 2 support for i386pe added.
 375
 376 * The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that
 377   is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used.
 378
 379 * The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for
 380   Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 381
 382 * cr16c support added by NSC.
 383
 384 * m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas.
 385
 386 * Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols.  The switch
 387   --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it
 388   should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to
 389   make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors.
 390
 391 Changes in 2.14:
 392
 393 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 394
 395 * Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for
 396   linking against a target filesystem image.
 397
 398 * Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre
 399   2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary
 400   file format.
 401
 402 * Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option.
 403
 404 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 405   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 406
 407 * Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for
 408   LIB_PATH.
 409
 410 * ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson.
 411
 412 * IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov.
 413
 414 Changes in 2.13:
 415
 416 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 417   and FR500 included.
 418
 419 Changes in version 2.13:
 420
 421 * DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas.
 422
 423 Changes in version 2.12:
 424
 425 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 426
 427 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 428
 429 * Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables
 430   production of copy relocs.  Warning: using this option may result in
 431   non-sharable applications.
 432
 433 * Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic
 434   relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker
 435   can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache.
 436
 437 * Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek.
 438
 439 Changes in version 2.11:
 440
 441 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 442
 443 * Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by
 444   having the compiler generate the information in sections called
 445   .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents.  The
 446   linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info
 447   section.
 448
 449 * The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or
 450   DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it.
 451
 452 * TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall.
 453
 454 * Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any
 455   specified section.
 456
 457 * Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables,
 458   enabled by --emit-relocs.  Some post-linkage optimization tools need
 459   this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform
 460   symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents
 461   (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.)
 462
 463 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality).
 464
 465 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 466
 467 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 468
 469 Changes in version 2.10:
 470
 471 * Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of
 472   sections into regions.
 473
 474 * Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections.
 475   It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are
 476   arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf,
 477   mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf.
 478   Others will ignore the option.
 479
 480 * Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file
 481   name or section name.
 482
 483 * Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u
 484   command-line option.
 485
 486 * Added ASSERT to the linker script language.
 487
 488 * Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over
 489   wildcard file names.
 490
 491 * Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only
 492   affects ELF shared library generation).
 493
 494 * The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name.
 495
 496 * Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a
 497   shared library.
 498
 499 * The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when
 500   using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old
 501   behaviour.
 502
 503 * Added --demangle and --no-demangle options.
 504
 505 Changes in version 2.9:
 506
 507 * Added SQUAD to the linker script language.
 508
 509 * New option --no-warn-mismatch.
 510
 511 * The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that
 512   are not placed in a specific memory region are placed.
 513
 514 Changes in version 2.8:
 515
 516 * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section
 517   names.
 518
 519 * The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF.
 520
 521 * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language.
 522
 523 * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language.
 524
 525 * MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language.
 526
 527 * The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language.
 528
 529 * New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section
 530   changes due to alignment of an input section.
 531
 532 * New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f.
 533
 534 Changes in version 2.7:
 535
 536 * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table.
 537
 538 * New option --wrap SYMBOL.
 539
 540 * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive.
 541
 542 * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script
 543   are not included in the output file.
 544
 545 * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses
 546   the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types.  This reduces the amount of debugging
 547   information generated.
 548
 549 Changes in version 2.6:
 550
 551 * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
 552 of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
 553 __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
 554 beginning and the end of the section.  This is used by glibc.
 555
 556   Addendum: Current versions of the linker (at least for version 2.18 onwards
 557 and possibly much earlier as well) place two restrictions on this feature:  The
 558 symbols are only implemented for orphaned sections, not for explicitly placed
 559 sections and they are PROVIDEd rather than being defined.
 560
 561 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
 562 contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
 563 not copied into the output file.  This is used by glibc.
 564
 565 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
 566 file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
 567 the section are displayed as an error message.  The section is not copied into
 568 the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link.  This is used by
 569 glibc.
 570
 571 * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
 572
 573 * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS.  It can
 574 also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker,
 575 will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e
 576 nor the -r option was used.
 577
 578 * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be
 579 searched at run time.  This overrides the default of building the list from the
 580 -L options.
 581
 582 * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
 583 enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
 584 only be defined once in the output file.  The --traditional-format switch will
 585 prevent this optimization.
 586
 587 Changes in version 2.5:
 588
 589 * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries.  It still can
 590 not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
 591 generate shared libraries.
 592
 593 * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
 594 (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris).  It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
 595 used to generate shared libraries.  Shared library generation is not well
 596 tested; please report any problems encountered.  The linker is now enabled for
 597 Solaris again.
 598
 599 * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
 600 Linux a.out shared libraries.  The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
 601
 602 * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code.  To use the new
 603 ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function.  So far,
 604 this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
 605 5), and HPPA ELF targets.
 606
 607 * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
 608 support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
 609 This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
 610
 611 * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
 612 it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
 613 file.  A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
 614 default linker script.
 615
 616 * The -warn-once option was added.  It causes the linker to only warn once per
 617 undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
 618
 619 * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code.  As with ELF, to
 620 use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function.  So
 621 far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
 622
 623 * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility.  The old -V
 624 behaviour is available via --verbose.
 625
 626 Changes in version 2.4:
 627
 628 * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor.  For a.out and ecoff
 629   formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
 630   and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
 631   before for formats not converted yet.
 632
 633 * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex.  This means
 634   oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
 635   separators.
 636
 637 * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law.  (No SOM support yet.)
 638
 639 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
 640
 641 * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
 642   libraries are not yet supported).
 643
 644 * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
 645
 646 * The linker is disabled for Solaris.  (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
 647   forgot to note it.)  Some of their C library routines don't work when
 648   statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
 649
 650 Changes in version 2.3:
 651
 652 * Weak symbols are now supported.
 653
 654 * ELF support has been added.  The linker has been bootstrapped on
 655   UnixWare and Solaris.
 656
 657 * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
 658
 659 Changes in version 2.2:
 660
 661 * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
 662   table size.  The effect of this is that files linked from many input
 663   files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
 664   static symbols) should be much smaller.
 665
 666 Changes in version 2.1:
 667
 668 * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
 669
 670 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
 671   other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.
 672
 673 \f
 674 Copyright (C) 2012-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 675
 676 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 677 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 678 notice and this notice are preserved.
 679
 680 Local variables:
 681 fill-column: 79
 682 End: