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Diffstat (limited to 'ld/NEWS')
| -rw-r--r-- | ld/NEWS | 603 |
1 files changed, 603 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,603 @@ +-*- text -*- + +Changes in 2.25: + +* PE binaries now once again contain real timestamps by default. To disable + the inclusion of a timestamp in a PE binary, use the --no-insert-timestamp + command line option. + +* Replace support for openrisc and or32 with support for or1k. + +* Add support for the --build-id command line option to COFF based targets. + +* x86/x86_64 pe-coff now supports the --build-id option. + +* Add support for the Andes NDS32. + +Changes in 2.24: + +* Add LOG2CEIL() builtin function to the linker script language + +* Add support for the Texas Instruments MSP430X processor. + +* Add support for Altera Nios II. + +* Add support for the V850E3V5 architecture. + +* Add support for the Imagination Technologies Meta processor. + +* --enable-new-dtags no longer generates old dtags in addition to new dtags. + +* Remove linker support for MIPS ECOFF targets. + +* Add ALIGN_WITH_INPUT to the linker script language to force the alignment of + an output section to use the maximum alignment of all its input sections. + +Changes in 2.23: + +* Enable compressed debug section feature for x86/x86_64 pe-coff. + +* Add support for the 64-bit ARM architecture: AArch64. + +* Added SORT_NONE to the linker script language to disable section sorting. + +* Add a linker-provided symbol when producing ELF output, '__ehdr_start' + to point to the ELF file header (and nearby program headers) in the + program's memory image. + +* Add support for S12X processor. + +* Add support for the VLE extension to the PowerPC architecture. + +* Add support for the Freescale XGATE architecture. + +* Add option -f FILE on AIX (for response file). + +* Add support for the Renesas RL78 architecture. + +* Add support for the Adapteva EPIPHANY architecture. + +Changes in 2.22: + +* --copy-dt-needed-entries is no longer enabled by default. Instead + --no-copy-dt-needed-entries is the default. + +* INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS has been added to the linker script language + to allow selection of input sections by section header section flags. + +* Add support for the Tilera TILEPro and TILE-Gx architectures. + +* Added SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY to the linker script language to permit + sorting sections by numerical value of the GCC init_priority attribute + encoded in the section name. + +Changes in 2.21: + +* Linker script expression evaluation is somewhat more sane. This may + break scripts that depend on quirks of the old expression evaluation. + +* Turn off underscoring for x86_64 PE+-COFF targets. For old behavior the + option --enable-leading-mingw64-underscores can be used on configure of + bfd. + +* Add support for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor family. + +* --add-needed renamed to --copy-dt-needed-entries in order to avoid confusion + with --as-needed option. + +* Extend .def file syntax by '== <ID>' for imports and exports. This allows + to alias the import/export table name written in PE image. + +* Add --exclude-all-symbols option to PE based linkers. This prevents all + symbols from automatically being exported. + +* Add support for the Renesas RX processor. + +* Add support for alpha-vms target. + +Changes in 2.20: + +* GNU/Linux targets now support the STB_GNU_UNIQUE symbol binding. This is a + GNU extension to the standard set of ELF symbol bindings. The binding will + be passed on to the dynamic linker which will make sure that in the entire + process there is just one symbol with the given name and type in use. + +* PE targets now support a GNU extension to allow the alignment of common + common symbols to be specified. This support uses custom options in + the .drectve section, which will be disregarded by the native tools. + +* PE targets now add primitive support for ELF version scripts; symbols + are not versioned, but the local and global symbol visibility directives + are respected when filtering symbols in auto-export mode. + +* New option --no-export-dynamic to undo the effect of the -E and + --export-dynamic options. + +* ELF: --warn-alternate-em option to warn if an object has alternate + ELF machine code. + +* New script function REGION_ALIAS to add alias names to memory regions. + +* PE targets no longer make use of the long section names PE extension to + the COFF format when generating executable images, by default. The old + (slightly non-conformant) behaviour can still be invoked by using the + new '--enable-long-section-names' command-line option. It is also enabled + automatically in the presence of un-stripped debug information, as GDB + needs to be able to find the debug info sections by their full names. + +* For GNU/Linux systems the linker will now avoid processing any relocations + made against symbols of the STT_GNU_IFUNC type and instead emit them into + the resulting binary for processing by the loader. + +* --as-needed now links in a dynamic library if it satisfies undefined + symbols in regular objects, or in other dynamic libraries. In the + latter case the library is not linked if it is found in a DT_NEEDED + entry of one of the libraries already linked. + +* Add a new command line option, -Ttext-segment ADDR, for ELF targets + to set the address of the first byte of the text segment. + +* Add support for Sunplus score architecture. + +* Add new option --use-nul-prefixed-import-tables to ld for PE targets to + allow fallback to old import table generation with null element prefix. + +* Windows PE systems now support a new --exclude-modules-for-implib option, + allowing users to partition object files and archive members between a DLL + and its associated import library as they are generated during linking. + +* Add support for Lattice Mico32 (lm32) architecture. + +* Add CR16 ELF --embedded-relocs (used to embedded relocations into binaries + for Embedded-PIC code) option. + +* Add to the PE/PE+ targets the support of two different kinds of + pseudo-relocations. They can be selected by the switches + --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v1 and --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc-v2. + For the switch --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc it uses for 32-bit + runtime pseudo relocation version one, for 64-bit the version two. + +Changes in 2.19: + +* Linker scripts support a new INSERT command that makes it easier to + augment the default script. + +* Linker script input section filespecs may now specify a file within an + archive by writing "archive:file". + +* The --sort-common switch now has an optional argument which specifies the + direction of sorting. + +* The M68K linker now supports multiple GOT generation schemes controlled via + the --got=<type> command line option. + +* The ARM EABI linker will now generate stubs for function calls to symbols + that are too far away. The placement of the stubs is controlled by a new + linker command line option: --stub-group-size=N. + +Changes in 2.18: + +* Linker sources now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public + License. + +* ELF: New --build-id option to generate a unique per-binary identifier + embedded in a note section. + +* Added support for National Semicondutor CompactRISC (ie CR16) target. + +* -l:foo now searches the library path for a filename called foo, + without converting it to libfoo.a or libfoo.so. + +* Add a new command line option '--default-script=FILE' or '-dT FILE' + which specifies a replacement for the built in, default linker + script. + +* ELF: Add -Bsymbolic-functions, --dynamic-list-cpp-new, which puts C++ + operator new and delete on the dynamic list, and --dynamic-list-data, + builtin list for --dynamic-list, which puts global data symbols on the + dynamic list. + +* Add support for x86_64 PE+ target. + +* Add support for Score target. + +* ELF: Add --dynamic-list option to specify a list of global symbols + whose references shouldn't be bound to the definition within the + shared library, or a list of symbols which should be added to the + symbol table in the executable. + +* The default output section LMA has changed for allocatable sections from + being equal to VMA, to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as + the previous output section in the same region. This is a more useful + default when using overlays and other cases where you specify an LMA + differing from the VMA for some sections. + +* New switch: --print-gc-sections to list any sections removed by garabge + collection. + +* ARM: Added --vfp11-denorm-fix option to work around an erratum in current + VFP11 coprocessors. + +Changes in 2.17: + +* Support for the Infineon XC16X has been added by KPIT Cummins Infosystems. + +* Modify the Linux linker search order to better match ld.so search order. + Look for DT_NEEDED libraries in paths specified by ld.so.conf before + searching the default directories, rather than vice versa. + Use $prefix/etc/ld.so.conf if it exists, otherwise /etc/ld.so.conf. + +* PE-COFF: Forward exports from DLL's can now be specified in .def files + passed directly to ld. + +* Support for the Z80 processor family has been added. + +* Add support for the "@<file>" syntax to the command line, so that extra + switches can be read from <file>. + +Changes in 2.16: + +* Support for the R_ARM_V4BX relocation as defined in the ARM AAELF + specification has been added via the --fix-v4bx command-line option. + +* New linker script construct AS_NEEDED(), which sets the --as-needed flag + for input files listed inside of it. + +* A new command-line option, --sysroot, can be used to override the + default sysroot location. It only applies to toolchains that were + configured using --with-sysroot. + +* New linker script functions: ORIGIN() and LENGTH() which return information + about a specified memory region. + +* Port to MAXQ processor contributed by HCL Tech. + +* Added SEGMENT_START to the linker script language to permit the user to + override the base address for a segment from the command-line. + +* ELF: --warn-shared-textrel option to warn if adding a DT_TEXTREL to a shared + object. + +* Added SORT_BY_NAME and SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT to the linker script + language to permit sorting sections by section name or section + maximum alignment. + +* Added a new linker command line switch, --sort-section name|alignment, + to sort sections by section name or maximum alignment. + +* ELF: --add-needed/--no-add-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag + should be added when a shared library comes from DT_NEEDED tags. + +* Support for the crx-elf target added. + +* Support for the sh-symbianelf target added. + +* A new linker command line switch has been added which allows the hash table + size to be set to a suitable prime value near to its argument. This switch + is --hash-size=<NUMBER>. Also if the switch --reduce-memory-overheads is + used, and --hash-size has not been used, then the default value will be set + to 1021. + +* Linker map files are now generated with an O(N) algorithm for finding symbols + that are defined in each section. This uses about 40% more memory for + symbols than the old O(N^2) algorithm. You can use the new + --reduce-memory-overheads option to select the old algorithm; this option + might also be used in the future to select similar tradeoffs. + +Changes in 2.15: + +* ELF: --as-needed/--no-as-needed options to control if a DT_NEEDED tag should + be added only when a shared library is referenced. + +* PE: --large-address-aware option to indicate executables support virtual + addresses greater than 2 gigabytes. + +* DWARF 2 support for i386pe added. + +* The linker script operator DEFINED() will now yield 1 only for a symbol that + is defined before the statement where DEFINED is used. + +* The MIPS --embedded-relocs (used to embed relocations into binaries for + Embedded-PIC code) is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. + +* cr16c support added by NSC. + +* m32r Linux (ELF) support added by Renesas. + +* Improved linker's handling of unresolved symbols. The switch + --unresolved-symbols=<method> has been added to tell the linker when it + should report them and the switch --warn-unresolved-symbols has been added to + make reports be issued as warning messages rather than errors. + +Changes in 2.14: + +* Added support for Xtensa architecture. + +* Added --with-sysroot configure switch to specify a target system root, for + linking against a target filesystem image. + +* Added --accept-unknown-linker-format to restore old linker behaviour (pre + 2.14) of silently accepting and linking in any files in an unknown binary + file format. + +* Added --no-omagic to undo the effects of the -N option. + +* Support for Texas Instruments TMS320C4x and TMS320C3x series of + DSP's contributed by Michael Hayes and Svein E. Seldal. + +* Added --with-lib-path configure switch to specify default value for + LIB_PATH. + +* ARM port to QNX operating system added by Graeme Peterson. + +* IP2K support added by Denis Chertykov. + +Changes in 2.13: + +* Support for the Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat. Models for FR400 + and FR500 included. + +Changes in version 2.13: + +* DEC VAX ELF support, by Matt Thomas. + +Changes in version 2.12: + +* Support for Don Knuth's MMIX, by Hans-Peter Nilsson. + +* Support for the OpenRISC 32-bit embedded processor by OpenCores. + +* Support for -z nocopyreloc in the x86 ELF linker, which disables + production of copy relocs. Warning: using this option may result in + non-sharable applications. + +* Support for -z combreloc in the ELF linker, which puts dynamic + relocations against the same symbol together, so that dynamic linker + can use an one-entry symbol lookup cache. + +* Support for ELF SHF_MERGE section merging, by Jakub Jelinek. + +Changes in version 2.11: + +* Support for AMD x86-64 architecture, by Jan Hubicka, SuSE Labs. + +* Support added for eliminating duplicate DWARF2 debug information by + having the compiler generate the information in sections called + .gnu.linkonce.wi.XXXX where XXXX is a checksum for the contents. The + linker then merges these sections together into the normal .debug_info + section. + +* The native ELF linker now searches the directories in DT_RUNPATH or + DT_RPATH of a shared library for shared libraries needed by it. + +* TI C54x support, by Timothy Wall. + +* Added command line switch --section-start to set the start address of any + specified section. + +* Added ability to emit full relocation information in linked executables, + enabled by --emit-relocs. Some post-linkage optimization tools need + this information in order to be able to correctly identify and perform + symbol relative addressing in the event of changes in section contents + (instructions being added or deleted, extending data sections, etc.) + +* Support for i860, by Jason Eckhardt (preliminary, alpha quality). + +* Support for CRIS (Axis Communications ETRAX series). + +* Support for PDP-11 and 2.11BSD a.out format, by Lars Brinkhoff. + +Changes in version 2.10: + +* Added AT> to the linker script language to allow load-time allocation of + sections into regions. + +* Added garbage collection of unused sections, enabled by --gc-sections. + It does require a bit of backend support; currently implemented are + arm-elf, avr-elf, d10v-elf, fr30-elf, i386-elf, m32r-elf, m68k-elf, + mcore-elf, mips-elf, mn10300-elf, ppc-elf, sh-elf, sparc-elf, and v850-elf. + Others will ignore the option. + +* Added SORT to the linker script language to permit sorting sections by file + name or section name. + +* Added EXTERN to the linker script language as an equivalent to the -u + command-line option. + +* Added ASSERT to the linker script language. + +* Added EXCLUDE_FILE to the linker script language for further control over + wildcard file names. + +* Added -O option to optimize linker output (as of this writing, this only + affects ELF shared library generation). + +* The -e option now accepts a number as well as a symbol name. + +* Added --no-undefined option to disallow undefined symbols when creating a + shared library. + +* The linker now issues a warning, not an error, for an undefined symbol when + using -Bsymbolic; use the new --no-undefined option to get the old + behaviour. + +* Added --demangle and --no-demangle options. + +Changes in version 2.9: + +* Added SQUAD to the linker script language. + +* New option --no-warn-mismatch. + +* The MEMORY command now parses the attributes to determine where sections that + are not placed in a specific memory region are placed. + +Changes in version 2.8: + +* Linker scripts may now contain shell wildcard characters for file and section + names. + +* The linker now supports symbol versions in ELF. + +* The NOCROSSREFS command was added to the linker script language. + +* The LOADADDR expression was added to the linker script language. + +* MAX and MIN functions were added to the linker script language. + +* The OVERLAY construct was added to the linker script language. + +* New option --warn-section-align to warn when the address of an output section + changes due to alignment of an input section. + +* New options --filter/-F and --auxiliary/-f. + +Changes in version 2.7: + +* New option --cref to print out a cross reference table. + +* New option --wrap SYMBOL. + +* New option --no-whole-archive, to turn off the effect of --whole-archive. + +* Input sections assigned to the output section /DISCARD/ in the linker script + are not included in the output file. + +* The SunOS and ELF linkers now merge stabs debugging information which uses + the N_BINCL and N_EINCL stab types. This reduces the amount of debugging + information generated. + +Changes in version 2.6: + +* When an ELF section name is representable as a C identifier (this is not true +of most ELF section names), the linker will automatically define symbols +__start_SECNAME and __stop_SECNAME, where SECNAME is the section name, at the +beginning and the end of the section. This is used by glibc. + + Addendum: Current versions of the linker (at least for version 2.18 onwards +and possibly much earlier as well) place two restrictions on this feature: The +symbols are only implemented for orphaned sections, not for explicitly placed +sections and they are PROVIDEd rather than being defined. + +* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning is encountered in an input file, the +contents of the section are displayed as an error message, and the section is +not copied into the output file. This is used by glibc. + +* When an ELF section named .gnu.warning.SYMBOL is encountered in an input +file, and the symbol SYMBOL is referenced by some object file, the contents of +the section are displayed as an error message. The section is not copied into +the output file, unless doing a relocatable or shared link. This is used by +glibc. + +* New options -split-by-reloc and -split-by-file. + +* The linker now supports linking PIC compiled code on SPARC SunOS. It can +also create SPARC SunOS shared libraries, and, like the native SunOS linker, +will do so whenever there is an undefined symbol in the link and neither the -e +nor the -r option was used. + +* The -rpath option may be used on SunOS to set the list of directories to be +searched at run time. This overrides the default of building the list from the +-L options. + +* The COFF linker now combines debugging information for structs, unions, and +enums, so that even if the same type is defined in multiple input files it will +only be defined once in the output file. The --traditional-format switch will +prevent this optimization. + +Changes in version 2.5: + +* The linker now supports linking against SunOS shared libraries. It still can +not link SunOS PIC (Position Independent Code) files, so it can not be used to +generate shared libraries. + +* The linker now supports linking against ELF shared libraries for the i386 +(UnixWare) and SPARC (Solaris). It can also link ELF PIC files, and can be +used to generate shared libraries. Shared library generation is not well +tested; please report any problems encountered. The linker is now enabled for +Solaris again. + +* Eric Youngdale has contributed Linux support code, including linking against +Linux a.out shared libraries. The linker produces Linux QMAGIC binaries. + +* The ELF backend has been converted to the new linker code. To use the new +ELF linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So far, +this function has been written for i386 (UnixWare), SPARC (Solaris) MIPS (Irix +5), and HPPA ELF targets. + +* The -( (--start-group) and -) (--end-group) options have been added to +support searching a group of archives as though they were a single archive. +This can also be used in a linker script, as GROUP ( files ). + +* When a file is named on the command line, and the linker does not recognize +it as an object file, the linker will now treat the file as a linker script +file. A linker script named in this way augments, but does not replace, the +default linker script. + +* The -warn-once option was added. It causes the linker to only warn once per +undefined symbol, rather than once per reference. + +* The COFF backend has been converted to the new linker code. As with ELF, to +use the new linker, each particular target requires a relocation function. So +far, this function has been written for the i386, m68k, a29k and SH targets. + +* The -V flag was made a synonym for -v, for SVR4 compatibility. The old -V +behaviour is available via --verbose. + +Changes in version 2.4: + +* New linker code, by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Taylor. For a.out and ecoff + formats (so far), this should result in considerable savings in time + and memory used while linking; slightly poorer performance than + before for formats not converted yet. + +* Command-line parsing is no longer done with flex. This means + oddball characters in filenames won't get treated as argument + separators. + +* HP-PA ELF support, by Jeff Law. (No SOM support yet.) + +* Mach i386 support, by David Mackenzie. + +* Irix 4 shared libraries are now supported (Irix 5 uses ELF, and ELF shared + libraries are not yet supported). + +* COFF shared libraries (as on SCO) should work as well. + +* The linker is disabled for Solaris. (Actually, it was in 2.3 also, I just + forgot to note it.) Some of their C library routines don't work when + statically linked, and the GNU linker doesn't support dynamic linking yet. + +Changes in version 2.3: + +* Weak symbols are now supported. + +* ELF support has been added. The linker has been bootstrapped on + UnixWare and Solaris. + +* Alpha OSF/1 support has been added (non dynamic linking only). + +Changes in version 2.2: + +* The `bfd' library has been updated to reduce a.out-format string + table size. The effect of this is that files linked from many input + files with duplicate symbols (`-g' debugging records, or identical + static symbols) should be much smaller. + +Changes in version 2.1: + +* The ld -ySYMBOL flag (to trace references to SYMBOL) is now implemented. + +* There is now support for writing ECOFF files, so ld and the + other utilities should work on Risc/Ultrix and Irix. + + +Copyright (C) 2012-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc. + +Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, +are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright +notice and this notice are preserved. + +Local variables: +fill-column: 79 +End: |