ld/NEWS

   1 -*- text -*-
   2
   3 * Add support for ELF SHF_GNU_MBIND and PT_GNU_MBIND_XXX.
   4
   5 * Add support for ELF GNU program properties.
   6
   7 * Add support for the Texas Instruments PRU processor.
   8
   9 * When configuring for arc*-*-linux* targets the default linker emulation will
  10   change if --with-cpu=nps400 is used at configure time.
  11
  12 * Improve assignment of LMAs to orphan sections in some edge cases where a
  13   mixture of both AT>LMA_REGION and AT(LMA) are used.
  14
  15 * Orphan sections placed after an empty section that has an AT(LMA) will now
  16   take an load memory address starting from LMA.
  17
  18 * Section groups can now be resolved (the group deleted and the group members
  19   placed like normal sections) at partial link time either using the new linker
  20   option --force-group-allocation or by placing FORCE_GROUP_ALLOCATION into the
  21   linker script.
  22
  23 Changes in 2.28:
  24
  25 * The EXCLUDE_FILE linker script construct can now be applied outside of the
  26   section list in order for the exclusions to apply over all input sections in
  27   the list.
  28
  29 * Add support for the RISC-V architecture.
  30
  31 * The command line option --no-eh-frame-hdr can now be used in ELF based
  32   linkers to disable the automatic generation of .eh_frame_hdr sections.
  33
  34 * Add --in-implib=<infile> to the ARM linker to enable specifying a set of
  35   Secure Gateway veneers that must exist in the output import library specified
  36   by --out-implib=<outfile> and the address they must have.  As such,
  37   --in-implib is only supported in combination with --cmse-implib.
  38
  39 * Extended the --out-implib=<file> option, previously restricted to x86 PE
  40   targets, to any ELF based target.  This allows the generation of an import
  41   library for an ELF executable, which can then be used by another application
  42   to link against the executable.
  43
  44 Changes in 2.27:
  45
  46 * Add a configure option --enable-relro to decide whether -z relro should
  47   be enabled in ELF linker by default.  Default to yes for all Linux
  48   targets except FRV, HPPA, IA64 and MIPS.
  49
  50 * Support for -z noreloc-overflow in the x86-64 ELF linker to disable
  51   relocation overflow check.
  52
  53 * Add -z common/-z nocommon options for ELF targets to control whether to
  54   convert common symbols to the STT_COMMON type during a relocatable link.
  55
  56 * Support for -z nodynamic-undefined-weak in the x86 ELF linker, which
  57   avoids dynamic relocations against undefined weak symbols in executable.
  58
  59 * The NOCROSSREFSTO command was added to the linker script language.
  60
  61 * Add --no-apply-dynamic-relocs to the AArch64 linker to do not apply link-time
  62   values for dynamic relocations.
  63
  64 Changes in 2.26:
  65
  66 * Add --fix-stm32l4xx-629360 to the ARM linker to enable a link-time
  67   workaround for a bug in the bus matrix / memory controller for some of
  68   the STM32 Cortex-M4 based products (STM32L4xx)
  69
  70 * Add a configure option --enable-compressed-debug-sections={all,ld} to
  71   decide whether DWARF debug sections should be compressed by default.
  72
  73 * Add support for the ARC EM/HS, and ARC600/700 architectures.
  74
  75 * Experimental support for linker garbage collection (--gc-sections)
  76   has been enabled for COFF and PE based targets.
  77
  78 * New command line option for ELF targets to compress DWARF debug
  79   sections, --compress-debug-sections=[none|zlib|zlib-gnu|zlib-gabi].
  80
  81 * New command line option, --orphan-handling=[place|warn|error|discard], to
  82   adjust how orphan sections are handled.  The default is 'place' which gives
  83   the current behaviour, 'warn' and 'error' issue a warning or error
  84   respectively when orphan sections are found, and 'discard' will discard all
  85   orphan sections.
  86
  87 * Add support for LLVM plugin.
  88
  89 * Add --print-memory-usage option to report memory blocks usage.
  90
  91 * Add --require-defined option, it's like --undefined except the new symbol
  92   must be defined by the end of the link.
  93
  94 Changes in 2.25:
  95
  96 * PE binaries now once again contain real timestamps by default.  To disable
  97   the inclusion of a timestamp in a PE binary, use the --no-insert-timestamp
  98   command line option.
  99
 100 * Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k.
 101
 102 * Add support for the --build-id command line option to COFF based targets.
 103
 104 * x86/x86_64 pe-coff now supports the --build-id option.
 105
 106 * Add support for the Andes NDS32.
 107
 108 Changes in 2.24:
 109
 110 * Add LOG2CEIL() builtin function to the linker script language
 111
 112 * Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor.
 113
 114 * Add support for Altera Nios II.
 115
 116 * Add support for the V850E3V5 architecture.
 117
 118 * Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor.
 119
 120 * --enable-new-dtags no longer generates old dtags in addition to new dtags.
 121
 122 * Remove linker support for MIPS ECOFF targets.
 123
 124 * Add ALIGN_WITH_INPUT to the linker script language to force the alignment of
 125   an output section to use the maximum alignment of all its input sections.
 126
 127 Changes in 2.23:
 128
 129 * Enable compressed debug section feature for x86/x86_64 pe-coff.
 130
 131 * Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64.
 132
 133 * Added SORT_NONE to the linker script language to disable section sorting.
 134
 135 * Add a linker-provided symbol when producing ELF output, '__ehdr_start'
 136   to point to the ELF file header (and nearby program headers) in the
 137   program's memory image.
 138
 139 * Add support for S12X processor.
 140
 141 * Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture.
 142
 143 * Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture.
 144
 145 * Add option -f FILE on AIX (for response file).
 146
 147 * Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture.
 148
 149 * Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture.
 150
 151 Changes in 2.22:
 152
 153 * --copy-dt-needed-entries is no longer enabled by default.  Instead
 154   --no-copy-dt-needed-entries is the default.
 155
 156 * INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS has been added to the linker script language
 157   to allow selection of input sections by section header section flags.
 158
 159 * Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures.
 160
 161 * Added SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY to the linker script language to permit
 162   sorting sections by numerical value of the GCC init_priority attribute
 163   encoded in the section name.
 164
 165 Changes in 2.21:
 166
 167 * Linker script expression evaluation is somewhat more sane.  This may
 168   break scripts that depend on quirks of the old expression evaluation.
 169
 170 * Turn off underscoring for x86_64 PE+-COFF targets.  For old behavior the
 171   option --enable-leading-mingw64-underscores can be used on configure of
 172   bfd.
 173
 174 * Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family.
 175
 176 * --add-needed renamed to --copy-dt-needed-entries in order to avoid confusion
 177   with --as-needed option.
 178
 179 * Extend .def file syntax by '== <ID>' for imports and exports. This allows
 180   to alias the import/export table name written in PE image.
 181
 182 * Add --exclude-all-symbols option to PE based linkers.  This prevents all
 183   symbols from automatically being exported.
 184
 185 * Add support for the Renesas RX processor.
 186
 187 * Add support for alpha-vms target.
 188
 189 Changes in 2.20:
 190
 191 * GNU/Linux targets now support the STB_GNU_UNIQUE symbol binding.  This is a
 192   GNU extension to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings.  The binding will
 193   be passed on to the dynamic linker which will make sure that in the entire
 194   process there is just one symbol with the given name and type in use.
 195
 196 * PE targets now support a GNU extension to allow the alignment of common
 197   common symbols to be specified.  This support uses custom options in
 198   the .drectve section, which will be disregarded by the native tools.
 199
 200 * PE targets now add primitive support for ELF version scripts; symbols
 201   are not versioned, but the local and global symbol visibility directives
 202   are respected when filtering symbols in auto-export mode.
 203
 204 * New option --no-export-dynamic to undo the effect of the -E and
 205   --export-dynamic options.
 206
 207 * ELF: --warn-alternate-em option to warn if an object has alternate
 208   ELF machine code.
 209
 210 * New script function REGION_ALIAS to add alias names to memory regions.
 211
 212 * PE targets no longer make use of the long section names PE extension to
 213   the COFF format when generating executable images, by default.  The old
 214   (slightly non-conformant) behaviour can still be invoked by using the
 215   new '--enable-long-section-names' command-line option.  It is also enabled
 216   automatically in the presence of un-stripped debug information, as GDB
 217   needs to be able to find the debug info sections by their full names.
 218
 219 * For GNU/Linux systems the linker will now avoid processing any relocations
 220   made against symbols of the STT_GNU_IFUNC type and instead emit them into
 221   the resulting binary for processing by the loader.
 222
 223 * --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined
 224   symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries.  In the
 225   latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED
 226   entry of one of the libraries already linked.
 227
 228 * Add a new command line option, -Ttext-segment ADDR, for ELF targets
 229   to set the address of the first byte of the text segment.
 230
 231 * Add support for Sunplus score architecture.
 232
 233 * Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to ld for PE targets to
 234   allow fallback to old import table generation with null element prefix.
 235
 236 * Windows PE systems now support a new --exclude-modules-for-implib option,
 237   allowing users to partition object files and archive members between a DLL
 238   and its associated import library as they are generated during linking.
 239
 240 * Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture.
 241
 242 * Add CR16 ELF --embedded-relocs (used to embedded relocations into binaries
 243   for Embedded-PIC code) option.
 244
 245 * Add to the PE/PE+ targets the support of two different kinds of
 246   pseudo-relocations.  They can be selected by the switches
 247   --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v1 and --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v2.
 248   For the switch --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc it uses for 32-bit
 249   runtime pseudo relocation version one, for 64-bit the version two.
 250
 251 Changes in 2.19:
 252
 253 * Linker scripts support a new INSERT command that makes it easier to
 254   augment the default script.
 255
 256 * Linker script input section filespecs may now specify a file within an
 257   archive by writing "archive:file".
 258
 259 * The --sort-common switch now has an optional argument which specifies the
 260   direction of sorting.
 261
 262 * The M68K linker now supports multiple GOT generation schemes controlled via
 263   the --got=<type> command line option.
 264
 265 * The ARM EABI linker will now generate stubs for function calls to symbols
 266   that are too far away.  The placement of the stubs is controlled by a new
 267   linker command line option: --stub-group-size=N.
 268
 269 Changes in 2.18:
 270
 271 * Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public
 272   License.
 273
 274 * ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier
 275   embedded in a note section.
 276
 277 * Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target.
 278
 279 * -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo,
 280   without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so.
 281
 282 * Add a new command line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE'
 283   which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker
 284   script.
 285
 286 * ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++
 287   operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data,
 288   builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the
 289   dynamic list.
 290
 291 * Add support for x86_64 PE+ target.
 292
 293 * Add support for Score target.
 294
 295 * ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols
 296   whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the
 297   shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the
 298   symbol table in the executable.
 299
 300 * The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from
 301   being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as
 302   the previous output section in the same region.  This is a more useful
 303   default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA
 304   differing from the VMA for some sections.
 305
 306 * New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge
 307   collection.
 308
 309 * ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current
 310   VFP11 coprocessors.
 311
 312 Changes in 2.17:
 313
 314 * Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems.
 315
 316 * Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order.
 317   Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before
 318   searching the default directories, rather than vice versa.
 319   Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf.
 320
 321 * PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files
 322   passed directly to ld.
 323
 324 * Support for the Z80 processor family has been added.
 325
 326 * Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra
 327   switches can be read from <file>.
 328
 329 Changes in 2.16:
 330
 331 * Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF
 332   specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option.
 333
 334 * New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag
 335   for input files listed inside of it.
 336
 337 * A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the
 338   default sysroot location.  It only applies to toolchains that were
 339   configured using --with-sysroot.
 340
 341 * New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information
 342   about a specified memory region.
 343
 344 * Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech.
 345
 346 * Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to
 347   override the base address for a segment from the command-line.
 348
 349 * ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared
 350   object.
 351
 352 * Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script
 353   language to permit sorting sections by section name or section
 354   maximum alignment.
 355
 356 * Added a new linker command line switch, --sort-section name|alignment,
 357   to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment.
 358
 359 * ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag
 360   should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags.
 361
 362 * Support for the crx-elf target added.
 363
 364 * Support for the sh-symbianelf target added.
 365
 366 * A new linker command line switch has been added which allows the hash table
 367   size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument.  This switch
 368   is --hash-size=<NUMBER>.  Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is
 369   used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set
 370   to 1021.
 371
 372 * Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols
 373   that are defined in each section.  This uses about 40% more memory for
 374   symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm.  You can use the new
 375   --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option
 376   might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs.
 377
 378 Changes in 2.15:
 379
 380 * ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should
 381   be added only when a shared library is referenced.
 382
 383 * PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual
 384   addresses greater than 2 gigabytes.
 385
 386 * DWARF 2 support for i386pe added.
 387
 388 * The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that
 389   is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used.
 390
 391 * The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for
 392   Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
 393
 394 * cr16c support added by NSC.
 395
 396 * m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas.
 397
 398 * Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols.  The switch
 399   --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it
 400   should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to
 401   make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors.
 402
 403 Changes in 2.14:
 404
 405 * Added support for Xtensa architecture.
 406
 407 * Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for
 408   linking against a target filesystem image.
 409
 410 * Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre
 411   2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary
 412   file format.
 413
 414 * Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option.
 415
 416 * Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of
 417   DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal.
 418
 419 * Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for
 420   LIB_PATH.
 421
 422 * ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson.
 423
 424 * IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov.
 425
 426 Changes in 2.13:
 427
 428 * Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400
 429   and FR500 included.
 430
 431 Changes in version 2.13:
 432
 433 * DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas.
 434
 435 Changes in version 2.12:
 436
 437 * Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson.
 438
 439 * Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores.
 440
 441 * Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables
 442   production of copy relocs.  Warning: using this option may result in
 443   non-sharable applications.
 444
 445 * Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic
 446   relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker
 447   can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache.
 448
 449 * Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek.
 450
 451 Changes in version 2.11:
 452
 453 * Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs.
 454
 455 * Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by
 456   having the compiler generate the information in sections called
 457   .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents.  The
 458   linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info
 459   section.
 460
 461 * The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or
 462   DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it.
 463
 464 * TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall.
 465
 466 * Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any
 467   specified section.
 468
 469 * Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables,
 470   enabled by --emit-relocs.  Some post-linkage optimization tools need
 471   this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform
 472   symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents
 473   (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.)
 474
 475 * Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality).
 476
 477 * Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series).
 478
 479 * Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff.
 480
 481 Changes in version 2.10:
 482
 483 * Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of
 484   sections into regions.
 485
 486 * Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections.
 487   It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are
 488   arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf,
 489   mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf.
 490   Others will ignore the option.
 491
 492 * Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file
 493   name or section name.
 494
 495 * Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u
 496   command-line option.
 497
 498 * Added ASSERT to the linker script language.
 499
 500 * Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over
 501   wildcard file names.
 502
 503 * Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only
 504   affects ELF shared library generation).
 505
 506 * The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name.
 507
 508 * Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a
 509   shared library.
 510
 511 * The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when
 512   using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old
 513   behaviour.
 514
 515 * Added --demangle and --no-demangle options.
 516
 517 Changes in version 2.9:
 518
 519 * Added SQUAD to the linker script language.
 520
 521 * New option --no-warn-mismatch.
 522
 523 * The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that
 524   are not placed in a specific memory region are placed.
 525
 526 Changes in version 2.8:
 527
 528 * Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section
 529   names.
 530
 531 * The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF.
 532
 533 * The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language.
 534
 535 * The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language.
 536
 537 * MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language.
 538
 539 * The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language.
 540
 541 * New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section
 542   changes due to alignment of an input section.
 543
 544 * New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f.
 545
 546 Changes in version 2.7:
 547
 548 * New option --cref to print out a cross reference table.
 549
 550 * New option --wrap SYMBOL.
 551
 552 * New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive.
 553
 554 * Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script
 555   are not included in the output file.
 556
 557 * The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses
 558   the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types.  This reduces the amount of debugging
 559   information generated.
 560
 561 Changes in version 2.6:
 562
 563 * When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true
 564 of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols
 565 __start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the
 566 beginning and the end of the section.  This is used by glibc.
 567
 568   Addendum: Current versions of the linker (at least for version 2.18 onwards
 569 and possibly much earlier as well) place two restrictions on this feature:  The
 570 symbols are only implemented for orphaned sections, not for explicitly placed
 571 sections and they are PROVIDEd rather than being defined.
 572
 573 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the
 574 contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is
 575 not copied into the output file.  This is used by glibc.
 576
 577 * When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input
 578 file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of
 579 the section are displayed as an error message.  The section is not copied into
 580 the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link.  This is used by
 581 glibc.
 582
 583 * New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file.
 584
 585 * The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS.  It can
 586 also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker,
 587 will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e
 588 nor the -r option was used.
 589
 590 * The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be
 591 searched at run time.  This overrides the default of building the list from the
 592 -L options.
 593
 594 * The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and
 595 enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will
 596 only be defined once in the output file.  The --traditional-format switch will
 597 prevent this optimization.
 598
 599 Changes in version 2.5:
 600
 601 * The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries.  It still can
 602 not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to
 603 generate shared libraries.
 604
 605 * The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386
 606 (UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris).  It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be
 607 used to generate shared libraries.  Shared library generation is not well
 608 tested; please report any problems encountered.  The linker is now enabled for
 609 Solaris again.
 610
 611 * Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against
 612 Linux a.out shared libraries.  The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries.
 613
 614 * The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code.  To use the new
 615 ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function.  So far,
 616 this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix
 617 5), and HPPA ELF targets.
 618
 619 * The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to
 620 support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive.
 621 This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ).
 622
 623 * When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize
 624 it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script
 625 file.  A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the
 626 default linker script.
 627
 628 * The -warn-once option was added.  It causes the linker to only warn once per
 629 undefined symbol, rather than once per reference.
 630
 631 * The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code.  As with ELF, to
 632 use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function.  So
 633 far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets.
 634
 635 * The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility.  The old -V
 636 behaviour is available via --verbose.
 637
 638 Changes in version 2.4:
 639
 640 * New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor.  For a.out and ecoff
 641   formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time
 642   and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than
 643   before for formats not converted yet.
 644
 645 * Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex.  This means
 646   oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument
 647   separators.
 648
 649 * HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law.  (No SOM support yet.)
 650
 651 * Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie.
 652
 653 * Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared
 654   libraries are not yet supported).
 655
 656 * COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well.
 657
 658 * The linker is disabled for Solaris.  (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just
 659   forgot to note it.)  Some of their C library routines don't work when
 660   statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet.
 661
 662 Changes in version 2.3:
 663
 664 * Weak symbols are now supported.
 665
 666 * ELF support has been added.  The linker has been bootstrapped on
 667   UnixWare and Solaris.
 668
 669 * Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only).
 670
 671 Changes in version 2.2:
 672
 673 * The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string
 674   table size.  The effect of this is that files linked from many input
 675   files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical
 676   static symbols) should be much smaller.
 677
 678 Changes in version 2.1:
 679
 680 * The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented.
 681
 682 * There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the
 683   other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix.
 684
 685 \f
 686 Copyright (C) 2012-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 687
 688 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
 689 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
 690 notice and this notice are preserved.
 691
 692 Local variables:
 693 fill-column: 79
 694 End: