1-*- text -*- 2* Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target. 3 4* -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo, 5 without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so. 6 7* Add a new command line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE' 8 which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker 9 script. 10 11* ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++ 12 operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data, 13 builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the 14 dynamic list. 15 16* Add support for x86_64 PE+ target. 17 18* Add support for Score target. 19 20* ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols 21 whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the 22 shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the 23 symbol table in the executable. 24 25* The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from 26 being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as 27 the previous output section in the same region. This is a more useful 28 default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA 29 differing from the VMA for some sections. 30 31* New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge 32 collection. 33 34* ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current 35VFP11 coprocessors. 36 37Changes in 2.17: 38 39* Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems. 40 41* Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order. 42 Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before 43 searching the default directories, rather than vice versa. 44 Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf. 45 46* PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files 47 passed directly to ld. 48 49* Support for the Z80 processor family has been added. 50 51* Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra 52 switches can be read from <file>. 53 54Changes in 2.16: 55 56* Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF 57 specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option. 58 59* New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag 60 for input files listed inside of it. 61 62* A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the 63 default sysroot location. It only applies to toolchains that were 64 configured using --with-sysroot. 65 66* New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information 67 about a specified memory region. 68 69* Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech. 70 71* Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to 72 override the base address for a segment from the command-line. 73 74* ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared 75 object. 76 77* Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script 78 language to permit sorting sections by section name or section 79 maximum alignment. 80 81* Added a new linker command line switch, --sort-section name|alignment, 82 to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment. 83 84* ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag 85 should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags. 86 87* Support for the crx-elf target added. 88 89* Support for the sh-symbianelf target added. 90 91* A new linker command line switch has been added which allows the hash table 92 size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument. This switch 93 is --hash-size=<NUMBER>. Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is 94 used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set 95 to 1021. 96 97* Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols 98 that are defined in each section. This uses about 40% more memory for 99 symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm. You can use the new 100 --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option 101 might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs. 102 103Changes in 2.15: 104 105* ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should 106 be added only when a shared library is referenced. 107 108* PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual 109 addresses greater than 2 gigabytes. 110 111* DWARF 2 support for i386pe added. 112 113* The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that 114 is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used. 115 116* The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for 117 Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. 118 119* cr16c support added by NSC. 120 121* m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas. 122 123* Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols. The switch 124 --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it 125 should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to 126 make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors. 127 128Changes in 2.14: 129 130* Added support for Xtensa architecture. 131 132* Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for 133 linking against a target filesystem image. 134 135* Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre 136 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary 137 file format. 138 139* Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option. 140 141* Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of 142 DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal. 143 144* Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for 145 LIB_PATH. 146 147* ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson. 148 149* IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov. 150 151Changes in 2.13: 152 153* Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400 154 and FR500 included. 155 156Changes in version 2.13: 157 158* DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas. 159 160Changes in version 2.12: 161 162* Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson. 163 164* Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores. 165 166* Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables 167 production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in 168 non-sharable applications. 169 170* Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic 171 relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker 172 can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache. 173 174* Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek. 175 176Changes in version 2.11: 177 178* Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs. 179 180* Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by 181 having the compiler generate the information in sections called 182 .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The 183 linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info 184 section. 185 186* The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or 187 DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it. 188 189* TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall. 190 191* Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any 192 specified section. 193 194* Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables, 195 enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need 196 this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform 197 symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents 198 (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.) 199 200* Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality). 201 202* Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series). 203 204* Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff. 205 206Changes in version 2.10: 207 208* Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of 209 sections into regions. 210 211* Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections. 212 It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are 213 arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf, 214 mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf. 215 Others will ignore the option. 216 217* Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file 218 name or section name. 219 220* Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u 221 command-line option. 222 223* Added ASSERT to the linker script language. 224 225* Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over 226 wildcard file names. 227 228* Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only 229 affects ELF shared library generation). 230 231* The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name. 232 233* Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a 234 shared library. 235 236* The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when 237 using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old 238 behaviour. 239 240* Added --demangle and --no-demangle options. 241 242Changes in version 2.9: 243 244* Added SQUAD to the linker script language. 245 246* New option --no-warn-mismatch. 247 248* The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that 249 are not placed in a specific memory region are placed. 250 251Changes in version 2.8: 252 253* Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section 254 names. 255 256* The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF. 257 258* The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language. 259 260* The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language. 261 262* MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language. 263 264* The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language. 265 266* New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section 267 changes due to alignment of an input section. 268 269* New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f. 270 271Changes in version 2.7: 272 273* New option --cref to print out a cross reference table. 274 275* New option --wrap SYMBOL. 276 277* New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive. 278 279* Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script 280 are not included in the output file. 281 282* The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses 283 the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging 284 information generated. 285 286Changes in version 2.6: 287 288* When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true 289of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols 290__start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the 291beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc. 292 293* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the 294contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is 295not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc. 296 297* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input 298file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of 299the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into 300the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link. This is used by 301glibc. 302 303* New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file. 304 305* The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can 306also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker, 307will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e 308nor the -r option was used. 309 310* The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be 311searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the 312-L options. 313 314* The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and 315enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will 316only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will 317prevent this optimization. 318 319Changes in version 2.5: 320 321* The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can 322not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to 323generate shared libraries. 324 325* The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386 326(UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be 327used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well 328tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for 329Solaris again. 330 331* Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against 332Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries. 333 334* The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new 335ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far, 336this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix 3375), and HPPA ELF targets. 338 339* The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to 340support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive. 341This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ). 342 343* When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize 344it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script 345file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the 346default linker script. 347 348* The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per 349undefined symbol, rather than once per reference. 350 351* The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to 352use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So 353far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets. 354 355* The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V 356behaviour is available via --verbose. 357 358Changes in version 2.4: 359 360* New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff 361 formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time 362 and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than 363 before for formats not converted yet. 364 365* Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means 366 oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument 367 separators. 368 369* HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.) 370 371* Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie. 372 373* Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared 374 libraries are not yet supported). 375 376* COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well. 377 378* The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just 379 forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when 380 statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet. 381 382Changes in version 2.3: 383 384* Weak symbols are now supported. 385 386* ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on 387 UnixWare and Solaris. 388 389* Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only). 390 391Changes in version 2.2: 392 393* The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string 394 table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input 395 files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical 396 static symbols) should be much smaller. 397 398Changes in version 2.1: 399 400* The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented. 401 402* There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the 403 other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. 404 405 406Local variables: 407fill-column: 79 408End: 409