ld(1)
LD(1) GNU Development Tools LD(1)
NAME
ld - The GNU linker
SYNOPSIS
ld [options] objfile ...
DESCRIPTION
ld combines a number of object and archive files, relocates
their data and ties up symbol references. Usually the last
step in compiling a program is to run ld.
ld accepts Linker Command Language files written in a
superset of AT&T's Link Editor Command Language syntax, to
provide explicit and total control over the linking process.
This man page does not describe the command language; see
the ld entry in "info" for full details on the command
language and on other aspects of the GNU linker.
This version of ld uses the general purpose BFD libraries to
operate on object files. This allows ld to read, combine,
and write object files in many different formats---for
example, COFF or "a.out". Different formats may be linked
together to produce any available kind of object file.
Aside from its flexibility, the GNU linker is more helpful
than other linkers in providing diagnostic information.
Many linkers abandon execution immediately upon encountering
an error; whenever possible, ld continues executing,
allowing you to identify other errors (or, in some cases, to
get an output file in spite of the error).
The GNU linker ld is meant to cover a broad range of
situations, and to be as compatible as possible with other
linkers. As a result, you have many choices to control its
behavior.
OPTIONS
The linker supports a plethora of command-line options, but
in actual practice few of them are used in any particular
context. For instance, a frequent use of ld is to link
standard Unix object files on a standard, supported Unix
system. On such a system, to link a file "hello.o":
ld -o <output> /lib/crt0.o hello.o -lc
This tells ld to produce a file called output as the result
of linking the file "/lib/crt0.o" with "hello.o" and the
library "libc.a", which will come from the standard search
directories. (See the discussion of the -l option below.)
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Some of the command-line options to ld may be specified at
any point in the command line. However, options which refer
to files, such as -l or -T, cause the file to be read at the
point at which the option appears in the command line,
relative to the object files and other file options.
Repeating non-file options with a different argument will
either have no further effect, or override prior occurrences
(those further to the left on the command line) of that
option. Options which may be meaningfully specified more
than once are noted in the descriptions below.
Non-option arguments are object files or archives which are
to be linked together. They may follow, precede, or be
mixed in with command-line options, except that an object
file argument may not be placed between an option and its
argument.
Usually the linker is invoked with at least one object file,
but you can specify other forms of binary input files using
-l, -R, and the script command language. If no binary input
files at all are specified, the linker does not produce any
output, and issues the message No input files.
If the linker cannot recognize the format of an object file,
it will assume that it is a linker script. A script
specified in this way augments the main linker script used
for the link (either the default linker script or the one
specified by using -T). This feature permits the linker to
link against a file which appears to be an object or an
archive, but actually merely defines some symbol values, or
uses "INPUT" or "GROUP" to load other objects. Specifying a
script in this way merely augments the main linker script,
with the extra commands placed after the main script; use
the -T option to replace the default linker script entirely,
but note the effect of the "INSERT" command.
For options whose names are a single letter, option
arguments must either follow the option letter without
intervening whitespace, or be given as separate arguments
immediately following the option that requires them.
For options whose names are multiple letters, either one
dash or two can precede the option name; for example,
-trace-symbol and --trace-symbol are equivalent.
Note---there is one exception to this rule. Multiple letter
options that start with a lower case 'o' can only be
preceded by two dashes. This is to reduce confusion with
the -o option. So for example -omagic sets the output file
name to magic whereas --omagic sets the NMAGIC flag on the
output.
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Arguments to multiple-letter options must either be
separated from the option name by an equals sign, or be
given as separate arguments immediately following the option
that requires them. For example, --trace-symbol foo and
--trace-symbol=foo are equivalent. Unique abbreviations of
the names of multiple-letter options are accepted.
Note---if the linker is being invoked indirectly, via a
compiler driver (e.g. gcc) then all the linker command line
options should be prefixed by -Wl, (or whatever is
appropriate for the particular compiler driver) like this:
gcc -Wl,--start-group foo.o bar.o -Wl,--end-group
This is important, because otherwise the compiler driver
program may silently drop the linker options, resulting in a
bad link. Confusion may also arise when passing options
that require values through a driver, as the use of a space
between option and argument acts as a separator, and causes
the driver to pass only the option to the linker and the
argument to the compiler. In this case, it is simplest to
use the joined forms of both single- and multiple-letter
options, such as:
gcc foo.o bar.o -Wl,-eENTRY -Wl,-Map=a.map
Here is a table of the generic command line switches
accepted by the GNU linker:
@file
Read command-line options from file. The options read
are inserted in place of the original @file option. If
file does not exist, or cannot be read, then the option
will be treated literally, and not removed.
Options in file are separated by whitespace. A
whitespace character may be included in an option by
surrounding the entire option in either single or double
quotes. Any character (including a backslash) may be
included by prefixing the character to be included with
a backslash. The file may itself contain additional
@file options; any such options will be processed
recursively.
-a keyword
This option is supported for HP/UX compatibility. The
keyword argument must be one of the strings archive,
shared, or default. -aarchive is functionally
equivalent to -Bstatic, and the other two keywords are
functionally equivalent to -Bdynamic. This option may
be used any number of times.
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--audit AUDITLIB
Adds AUDITLIB to the "DT_AUDIT" entry of the dynamic
section. AUDITLIB is not checked for existence, nor
will it use the DT_SONAME specified in the library. If
specified multiple times "DT_AUDIT" will contain a colon
separated list of audit interfaces to use. If the linker
finds an object with an audit entry while searching for
shared libraries, it will add a corresponding
"DT_DEPAUDIT" entry in the output file. This option is
only meaningful on ELF platforms supporting the rtld-
audit interface.
-A architecture
--architecture=architecture
In the current release of ld, this option is useful only
for the Intel 960 family of architectures. In that ld
configuration, the architecture argument identifies the
particular architecture in the 960 family, enabling some
safeguards and modifying the archive-library search
path.
Future releases of ld may support similar functionality
for other architecture families.
-b input-format
--format=input-format
ld may be configured to support more than one kind of
object file. If your ld is configured this way, you can
use the -b option to specify the binary format for input
object files that follow this option on the command
line. Even when ld is configured to support alternative
object formats, you don't usually need to specify this,
as ld should be configured to expect as a default input
format the most usual format on each machine. input-
format is a text string, the name of a particular format
supported by the BFD libraries. (You can list the
available binary formats with objdump -i.)
You may want to use this option if you are linking files
with an unusual binary format. You can also use -b to
switch formats explicitly (when linking object files of
different formats), by including -b input-format before
each group of object files in a particular format.
The default format is taken from the environment
variable "GNUTARGET".
You can also define the input format from a script,
using the command "TARGET";
-c MRI-commandfile
--mri-script=MRI-commandfile
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For compatibility with linkers produced by MRI, ld
accepts script files written in an alternate, restricted
command language, described in the MRI Compatible Script
Files section of GNU ld documentation. Introduce MRI
script files with the option -c; use the -T option to
run linker scripts written in the general-purpose ld
scripting language. If MRI-cmdfile does not exist, ld
looks for it in the directories specified by any -L
options.
-d
-dc
-dp These three options are equivalent; multiple forms are
supported for compatibility with other linkers. They
assign space to common symbols even if a relocatable
output file is specified (with -r). The script command
"FORCE_COMMON_ALLOCATION" has the same effect.
--depaudit AUDITLIB
-P AUDITLIB
Adds AUDITLIB to the "DT_DEPAUDIT" entry of the dynamic
section. AUDITLIB is not checked for existence, nor
will it use the DT_SONAME specified in the library. If
specified multiple times "DT_DEPAUDIT" will contain a
colon separated list of audit interfaces to use. This
option is only meaningful on ELF platforms supporting
the rtld-audit interface. The -P option is provided for
Solaris compatibility.
-e entry
--entry=entry
Use entry as the explicit symbol for beginning execution
of your program, rather than the default entry point.
If there is no symbol named entry, the linker will try
to parse entry as a number, and use that as the entry
address (the number will be interpreted in base 10; you
may use a leading 0x for base 16, or a leading 0 for
base 8).
--exclude-libs lib,lib,...
Specifies a list of archive libraries from which symbols
should not be automatically exported. The library names
may be delimited by commas or colons. Specifying
"--exclude-libs ALL" excludes symbols in all archive
libraries from automatic export. This option is
available only for the i386 PE targeted port of the
linker and for ELF targeted ports. For i386 PE, symbols
explicitly listed in a .def file are still exported,
regardless of this option. For ELF targeted ports,
symbols affected by this option will be treated as
hidden.
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--exclude-modules-for-implib module,module,...
Specifies a list of object files or archive members,
from which symbols should not be automatically exported,
but which should be copied wholesale into the import
library being generated during the link. The module
names may be delimited by commas or colons, and must
match exactly the filenames used by ld to open the
files; for archive members, this is simply the member
name, but for object files the name listed must include
and match precisely any path used to specify the input
file on the linker's command-line. This option is
available only for the i386 PE targeted port of the
linker. Symbols explicitly listed in a .def file are
still exported, regardless of this option.
-E
--export-dynamic
--no-export-dynamic
When creating a dynamically linked executable, using the
-E option or the --export-dynamic option causes the
linker to add all symbols to the dynamic symbol table.
The dynamic symbol table is the set of symbols which are
visible from dynamic objects at run time.
If you do not use either of these options (or use the
--no-export-dynamic option to restore the default
behavior), the dynamic symbol table will normally
contain only those symbols which are referenced by some
dynamic object mentioned in the link.
If you use "dlopen" to load a dynamic object which needs
to refer back to the symbols defined by the program,
rather than some other dynamic object, then you will
probably need to use this option when linking the
program itself.
You can also use the dynamic list to control what
symbols should be added to the dynamic symbol table if
the output format supports it. See the description of
--dynamic-list.
Note that this option is specific to ELF targeted ports.
PE targets support a similar function to export all
symbols from a DLL or EXE; see the description of
--export-all-symbols below.
-EB Link big-endian objects. This affects the default
output format.
-EL Link little-endian objects. This affects the default
output format.
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-f name
--auxiliary=name
When creating an ELF shared object, set the internal
DT_AUXILIARY field to the specified name. This tells
the dynamic linker that the symbol table of the shared
object should be used as an auxiliary filter on the
symbol table of the shared object name.
If you later link a program against this filter object,
then, when you run the program, the dynamic linker will
see the DT_AUXILIARY field. If the dynamic linker
resolves any symbols from the filter object, it will
first check whether there is a definition in the shared
object name. If there is one, it will be used instead
of the definition in the filter object. The shared
object name need not exist. Thus the shared object name
may be used to provide an alternative implementation of
certain functions, perhaps for debugging or for machine
specific performance.
This option may be specified more than once. The
DT_AUXILIARY entries will be created in the order in
which they appear on the command line.
-F name
--filter=name
When creating an ELF shared object, set the internal
DT_FILTER field to the specified name. This tells the
dynamic linker that the symbol table of the shared
object which is being created should be used as a filter
on the symbol table of the shared object name.
If you later link a program against this filter object,
then, when you run the program, the dynamic linker will
see the DT_FILTER field. The dynamic linker will
resolve symbols according to the symbol table of the
filter object as usual, but it will actually link to the
definitions found in the shared object name. Thus the
filter object can be used to select a subset of the
symbols provided by the object name.
Some older linkers used the -F option throughout a
compilation toolchain for specifying object-file format
for both input and output object files. The GNU linker
uses other mechanisms for this purpose: the -b,
--format, --oformat options, the "TARGET" command in
linker scripts, and the "GNUTARGET" environment
variable. The GNU linker will ignore the -F option when
not creating an ELF shared object.
-fini=name
When creating an ELF executable or shared object, call
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NAME when the executable or shared object is unloaded,
by setting DT_FINI to the address of the function. By
default, the linker uses "_fini" as the function to
call.
-g Ignored. Provided for compatibility with other tools.
-G value
--gpsize=value
Set the maximum size of objects to be optimized using
the GP register to size. This is only meaningful for
object file formats such as MIPS ELF that support
putting large and small objects into different sections.
This is ignored for other object file formats.
-h name
-soname=name
When creating an ELF shared object, set the internal
DT_SONAME field to the specified name. When an
executable is linked with a shared object which has a
DT_SONAME field, then when the executable is run the
dynamic linker will attempt to load the shared object
specified by the DT_SONAME field rather than the using
the file name given to the linker.
-i Perform an incremental link (same as option -r).
-init=name
When creating an ELF executable or shared object, call
NAME when the executable or shared object is loaded, by
setting DT_INIT to the address of the function. By
default, the linker uses "_init" as the function to
call.
-l namespec
--library=namespec
Add the archive or object file specified by namespec to
the list of files to link. This option may be used any
number of times. If namespec is of the form :filename,
ld will search the library path for a file called
filename, otherwise it will search the library path for
a file called libnamespec.a.
On systems which support shared libraries, ld may also
search for files other than libnamespec.a.
Specifically, on ELF and SunOS systems, ld will search a
directory for a library called libnamespec.so before
searching for one called libnamespec.a. (By convention,
a ".so" extension indicates a shared library.) Note
that this behavior does not apply to :filename, which
always specifies a file called filename.
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The linker will search an archive only once, at the
location where it is specified on the command line. If
the archive defines a symbol which was undefined in some
object which appeared before the archive on the command
line, the linker will include the appropriate file(s)
from the archive. However, an undefined symbol in an
object appearing later on the command line will not
cause the linker to search the archive again.
See the -( option for a way to force the linker to
search archives multiple times.
You may list the same archive multiple times on the
command line.
This type of archive searching is standard for Unix
linkers. However, if you are using ld on AIX, note that
it is different from the behaviour of the AIX linker.
-L searchdir
--library-path=searchdir
Add path searchdir to the list of paths that ld will
search for archive libraries and ld control scripts.
You may use this option any number of times. The
directories are searched in the order in which they are
specified on the command line. Directories specified on
the command line are searched before the default
directories. All -L options apply to all -l options,
regardless of the order in which the options appear. -L
options do not affect how ld searches for a linker
script unless -T option is specified.
If searchdir begins with "=" or $SYSROOT, then this
prefix will be replaced by the sysroot prefix,
controlled by the --sysroot option, or specified when
the linker is configured.
The default set of paths searched (without being
specified with -L) depends on which emulation mode ld is
using, and in some cases also on how it was configured.
The paths can also be specified in a link script with
the "SEARCH_DIR" command. Directories specified this
way are searched at the point in which the linker script
appears in the command line.
-m emulation
Emulate the emulation linker. You can list the
available emulations with the --verbose or -V options.
If the -m option is not used, the emulation is taken
from the "LDEMULATION" environment variable, if that is
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defined.
Otherwise, the default emulation depends upon how the
linker was configured.
-M
--print-map
Print a link map to the standard output. A link map
provides information about the link, including the
following:
o Where object files are mapped into memory.
o How common symbols are allocated.
o All archive members included in the link, with a
mention of the symbol which caused the archive
member to be brought in.
o The values assigned to symbols.
Note - symbols whose values are computed by an
expression which involves a reference to a previous
value of the same symbol may not have correct result
displayed in the link map. This is because the
linker discards intermediate results and only
retains the final value of an expression. Under
such circumstances the linker will display the final
value enclosed by square brackets. Thus for example
a linker script containing:
foo = 1
foo = foo * 4
foo = foo + 8
will produce the following output in the link map if
the -M option is used:
0x00000001 foo = 0x1
[0x0000000c] foo = (foo * 0x4)
[0x0000000c] foo = (foo + 0x8)
See Expressions for more information about
expressions in linker scripts.
-n
--nmagic
Turn off page alignment of sections, and disable linking
against shared libraries. If the output format supports
Unix style magic numbers, mark the output as "NMAGIC".
-N
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--omagic
Set the text and data sections to be readable and
writable. Also, do not page-align the data segment, and
disable linking against shared libraries. If the output
format supports Unix style magic numbers, mark the
output as "OMAGIC". Note: Although a writable text
section is allowed for PE-COFF targets, it does not
conform to the format specification published by
Microsoft.
--no-omagic
This option negates most of the effects of the -N
option. It sets the text section to be read-only, and
forces the data segment to be page-aligned. Note - this
option does not enable linking against shared libraries.
Use -Bdynamic for this.
-o output
--output=output
Use output as the name for the program produced by ld;
if this option is not specified, the name a.out is used
by default. The script command "OUTPUT" can also
specify the output file name.
-O level
If level is a numeric values greater than zero ld
optimizes the output. This might take significantly
longer and therefore probably should only be enabled for
the final binary. At the moment this option only
affects ELF shared library generation. Future releases
of the linker may make more use of this option. Also
currently there is no difference in the linker's
behaviour for different non-zero values of this option.
Again this may change with future releases.
-plugin name
Involve a plugin in the linking process. The name
parameter is the absolute filename of the plugin.
Usually this parameter is automatically added by the
complier, when using link time optimization, but users
can also add their own plugins if they so wish.
Note that the location of the compiler originated
plugins is different from the place where the ar, nm and
ranlib programs search for their plugins. In order for
those commands to make use of a compiler based plugin it
must first be copied into the ${libdir}/bfd-plugins
directory. All gcc based linker plugins are backward
compatible, so it is sufficient to just copy in the
newest one.
--push-state
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The --push-state allows to preserve the current state of
the flags which govern the input file handling so that
they can all be restored with one corresponding
--pop-state option.
The option which are covered are: -Bdynamic, -Bstatic,
-dn, -dy, -call_shared, -non_shared, -static, -N, -n,
--whole-archive, --no-whole-archive, -r, -Ur,
--copy-dt-needed-entries, --no-copy-dt-needed-entries,
--as-needed, --no-as-needed, and -a.
One target for this option are specifications for pkg-
config. When used with the --libs option all possibly
needed libraries are listed and then possibly linked
with all the time. It is better to return something as
follows:
-Wl,--push-state,--as-needed -libone -libtwo -Wl,--pop-state
--pop-state
Undoes the effect of --push-state, restores the previous
values of the flags governing input file handling.
-q
--emit-relocs
Leave relocation sections and contents in fully linked
executables. Post link analysis and optimization tools
may need this information in order to perform correct
modifications of executables. This results in larger
executables.
This option is currently only supported on ELF
platforms.
--force-dynamic
Force the output file to have dynamic sections. This
option is specific to VxWorks targets.
-r
--relocatable
Generate relocatable output---i.e., generate an output
file that can in turn serve as input to ld. This is
often called partial linking. As a side effect, in
environments that support standard Unix magic numbers,
this option also sets the output file's magic number to
"OMAGIC". If this option is not specified, an absolute
file is produced. When linking C++ programs, this
option will not resolve references to constructors; to
do that, use -Ur.
When an input file does not have the same format as the
output file, partial linking is only supported if that
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input file does not contain any relocations. Different
output formats can have further restrictions; for
example some "a.out"-based formats do not support
partial linking with input files in other formats at
all.
This option does the same thing as -i.
-R filename
--just-symbols=filename
Read symbol names and their addresses from filename, but
do not relocate it or include it in the output. This
allows your output file to refer symbolically to
absolute locations of memory defined in other programs.
You may use this option more than once.
For compatibility with other ELF linkers, if the -R
option is followed by a directory name, rather than a
file name, it is treated as the -rpath option.
-s
--strip-all
Omit all symbol information from the output file.
-S
--strip-debug
Omit debugger symbol information (but not all symbols)
from the output file.
--strip-discarded
--no-strip-discarded
Omit (or do not omit) global symbols defined in
discarded sections. Enabled by default.
-t
--trace
Print the names of the input files as ld processes them.
-T scriptfile
--script=scriptfile
Use scriptfile as the linker script. This script
replaces ld's default linker script (rather than adding
to it), so commandfile must specify everything necessary
to describe the output file. If scriptfile does not
exist in the current directory, "ld" looks for it in the
directories specified by any preceding -L options.
Multiple -T options accumulate.
-dT scriptfile
--default-script=scriptfile
Use scriptfile as the default linker script.
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This option is similar to the --script option except
that processing of the script is delayed until after the
rest of the command line has been processed. This
allows options placed after the --default-script option
on the command line to affect the behaviour of the
linker script, which can be important when the linker
command line cannot be directly controlled by the user.
(eg because the command line is being constructed by
another tool, such as gcc).
-u symbol
--undefined=symbol
Force symbol to be entered in the output file as an
undefined symbol. Doing this may, for example, trigger
linking of additional modules from standard libraries.
-u may be repeated with different option arguments to
enter additional undefined symbols. This option is
equivalent to the "EXTERN" linker script command.
If this option is being used to force additional modules
to be pulled into the link, and if it is an error for
the symbol to remain undefined, then the option
--require-defined should be used instead.
--require-defined=symbol
Require that symbol is defined in the output file. This
option is the same as option --undefined except that if
symbol is not defined in the output file then the linker
will issue an error and exit. The same effect can be
achieved in a linker script by using "EXTERN", "ASSERT"
and "DEFINED" together. This option can be used
multiple times to require additional symbols.
-Ur For anything other than C++ programs, this option is
equivalent to -r: it generates relocatable
output---i.e., an output file that can in turn serve as
input to ld. When linking C++ programs, -Ur does
resolve references to constructors, unlike -r. It does
not work to use -Ur on files that were themselves linked
with -Ur; once the constructor table has been built, it
cannot be added to. Use -Ur only for the last partial
link, and -r for the others.
--orphan-handling=MODE
Control how orphan sections are handled. An orphan
section is one not specifically mentioned in a linker
script.
MODE can have any of the following values:
"place"
Orphan sections are placed into a suitable output
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section following the strategy described in Orphan
Sections. The option --unique also affects how
sections are placed.
"discard"
All orphan sections are discarded, by placing them
in the /DISCARD/ section.
"warn"
The linker will place the orphan section as for
"place" and also issue a warning.
"error"
The linker will exit with an error if any orphan
section is found.
The default if --orphan-handling is not given is
"place".
--unique[=SECTION]
Creates a separate output section for every input
section matching SECTION, or if the optional wildcard
SECTION argument is missing, for every orphan input
section. An orphan section is one not specifically
mentioned in a linker script. You may use this option
multiple times on the command line; It prevents the
normal merging of input sections with the same name,
overriding output section assignments in a linker
script.
-v
--version
-V Display the version number for ld. The -V option also
lists the supported emulations.
-x
--discard-all
Delete all local symbols.
-X
--discard-locals
Delete all temporary local symbols. (These symbols
start with system-specific local label prefixes,
typically .L for ELF systems or L for traditional a.out
systems.)
-y symbol
--trace-symbol=symbol
Print the name of each linked file in which symbol
appears. This option may be given any number of times.
On many systems it is necessary to prepend an
underscore.
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This option is useful when you have an undefined symbol
in your link but don't know where the reference is
coming from.
-Y path
Add path to the default library search path. This
option exists for Solaris compatibility.
-z keyword
The recognized keywords are:
bndplt
Always generate BND prefix in PLT entries. Supported
for Linux/x86_64.
call-nop=prefix-addr
call-nop=suffix-nop
call-nop=prefix-byte
call-nop=suffix-byte
Specify the 1-byte "NOP" padding when transforming
indirect call to a locally defined function, foo,
via its GOT slot. call-nop=prefix-addr generates
"0x67 call foo". call-nop=suffix-nop generates
"call foo 0x90". call-nop=prefix-byte generates
"byte call foo". call-nop=suffix-byte generates
"call foo byte". Supported for i386 and x86_64.
combreloc
nocombreloc
Combine multiple dynamic relocation sections and
sort to improve dynamic symbol lookup caching. Do
not do this if nocombreloc.
common
nocommon
Generate common symbols with STT_COMMON type during
a relocatable link. Use STT_OBJECT type if
nocommon.
common-page-size=value
Set the page size most commonly used to value.
Memory image layout will be optimized to minimize
memory pages if the system is using pages of this
size.
defs
Report unresolved symbol references from regular
object files. This is done even if the linker is
creating a non-symbolic shared library. This option
is the inverse of -z undefs.
dynamic-undefined-weak
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nodynamic-undefined-weak
Make undefined weak symbols dynamic when building a
dynamic object, if they are referenced from a
regular object file and not forced local by symbol
visibility or versioning. Do not make them dynamic
if nodynamic-undefined-weak. If neither option is
given, a target may default to either option being
in force, or make some other selection of undefined
weak symbols dynamic. Not all targets support these
options.
execstack
Marks the object as requiring executable stack.
global
This option is only meaningful when building a
shared object. It makes the symbols defined by this
shared object available for symbol resolution of
subsequently loaded libraries.
globalaudit
This option is only meaningful when building a
dynamic executable. This option marks the
executable as requiring global auditing by setting
the "DF_1_GLOBAUDIT" bit in the "DT_FLAGS_1" dynamic
tag. Global auditing requires that any auditing
library defined via the --depaudit or -P command
line options be run for all dynamic objects loaded
by the application.
ibtplt
Generate Intel Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT)
enabled PLT entries. Supported for Linux/i386 and
Linux/x86_64.
ibt Generate GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_IBT in
.note.gnu.property section to indicate compatibility
with IBT. This also implies ibtplt. Supported for
Linux/i386 and Linux/x86_64.
initfirst
This option is only meaningful when building a
shared object. It marks the object so that its
runtime initialization will occur before the runtime
initialization of any other objects brought into the
process at the same time. Similarly the runtime
finalization of the object will occur after the
runtime finalization of any other objects.
interpose
Specify that the dynamic loader should modify its
symbol search order so that symbols in this shared
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library interpose all other shared libraries not so
marked.
lazy
When generating an executable or shared library,
mark it to tell the dynamic linker to defer function
call resolution to the point when the function is
called (lazy binding), rather than at load time.
Lazy binding is the default.
loadfltr
Specify that the object's filters be processed
immediately at runtime.
max-page-size=value
Set the maximum memory page size supported to value.
muldefs
Allow multiple definitions.
nocopyreloc
Disable linker generated .dynbss variables used in
place of variables defined in shared libraries. May
result in dynamic text relocations.
nodefaultlib
Specify that the dynamic loader search for
dependencies of this object should ignore any
default library search paths.
nodelete
Specify that the object shouldn't be unloaded at
runtime.
nodlopen
Specify that the object is not available to
"dlopen".
nodump
Specify that the object can not be dumped by
"dldump".
noexecstack
Marks the object as not requiring executable stack.
noextern-protected-data
Don't treat protected data symbols as external when
building a shared library. This option overrides
the linker backend default. It can be used to work
around incorrect relocations against protected data
symbols generated by compiler. Updates on protected
data symbols by another module aren't visible to the
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resulting shared library. Supported for i386 and
x86-64.
noreloc-overflow
Disable relocation overflow check. This can be used
to disable relocation overflow check if there will
be no dynamic relocation overflow at run-time.
Supported for x86_64.
now When generating an executable or shared library,
mark it to tell the dynamic linker to resolve all
symbols when the program is started, or when the
shared library is loaded by dlopen, instead of
deferring function call resolution to the point when
the function is first called.
origin
Specify that the object requires $ORIGIN handling in
paths.
relro
norelro
Create an ELF "PT_GNU_RELRO" segment header in the
object. This specifies a memory segment that should
be made read-only after relocation, if supported.
Specifying common-page-size smaller than the system
page size will render this protection ineffective.
Don't create an ELF "PT_GNU_RELRO" segment if
norelro.
separate-code
noseparate-code
Create separate code "PT_LOAD" segment header in the
object. This specifies a memory segment that should
contain only instructions and must be in wholly
disjoint pages from any other data. Don't create
separate code "PT_LOAD" segment if noseparate-code
is used.
shstk
Generate GNU_PROPERTY_X86_FEATURE_1_SHSTK in
.note.gnu.property section to indicate compatibility
with Intel Shadow Stack. Supported for Linux/i386
and Linux/x86_64.
stack-size=value
Specify a stack size for an ELF "PT_GNU_STACK"
segment. Specifying zero will override any default
non-zero sized "PT_GNU_STACK" segment creation.
text
notext
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textoff
Report an error if DT_TEXTREL is set, i.e., if the
binary has dynamic relocations in read-only
sections. Don't report an error if notext or
textoff.
undefs
Do not report unresolved symbol references from
regular object files, either when creating an
executable, or when creating a shared library. This
option is the inverse of -z defs.
Other keywords are ignored for Solaris compatibility.
-( archives -)
--start-group archives --end-group
The archives should be a list of archive files. They
may be either explicit file names, or -l options.
The specified archives are searched repeatedly until no
new undefined references are created. Normally, an
archive is searched only once in the order that it is
specified on the command line. If a symbol in that
archive is needed to resolve an undefined symbol
referred to by an object in an archive that appears
later on the command line, the linker would not be able
to resolve that reference. By grouping the archives,
they all be searched repeatedly until all possible
references are resolved.
Using this option has a significant performance cost.
It is best to use it only when there are unavoidable
circular references between two or more archives.
--accept-unknown-input-arch
--no-accept-unknown-input-arch
Tells the linker to accept input files whose
architecture cannot be recognised. The assumption is
that the user knows what they are doing and deliberately
wants to link in these unknown input files. This was
the default behaviour of the linker, before release
2.14. The default behaviour from release 2.14 onwards
is to reject such input files, and so the
--accept-unknown-input-arch option has been added to
restore the old behaviour.
--as-needed
--no-as-needed
This option affects ELF DT_NEEDED tags for dynamic
libraries mentioned on the command line after the
--as-needed option. Normally the linker will add a
DT_NEEDED tag for each dynamic library mentioned on the
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command line, regardless of whether the library is
actually needed or not. --as-needed causes a DT_NEEDED
tag to only be emitted for a library that at that point
in the link satisfies a non-weak undefined symbol
reference from a regular object file or, if the library
is not found in the DT_NEEDED lists of other needed
libraries, a non-weak undefined symbol reference from
another needed dynamic library. Object files or
libraries appearing on the command line after the
library in question do not affect whether the library is
seen as needed. This is similar to the rules for
extraction of object files from archives.
--no-as-needed restores the default behaviour.
--add-needed
--no-add-needed
These two options have been deprecated because of the
similarity of their names to the --as-needed and
--no-as-needed options. They have been replaced by
--copy-dt-needed-entries and
--no-copy-dt-needed-entries.
-assert keyword
This option is ignored for SunOS compatibility.
-Bdynamic
-dy
-call_shared
Link against dynamic libraries. This is only meaningful
on platforms for which shared libraries are supported.
This option is normally the default on such platforms.
The different variants of this option are for
compatibility with various systems. You may use this
option multiple times on the command line: it affects
library searching for -l options which follow it.
-Bgroup
Set the "DF_1_GROUP" flag in the "DT_FLAGS_1" entry in
the dynamic section. This causes the runtime linker to
handle lookups in this object and its dependencies to be
performed only inside the group.
--unresolved-symbols=report-all is implied. This option
is only meaningful on ELF platforms which support shared
libraries.
-Bstatic
-dn
-non_shared
-static
Do not link against shared libraries. This is only
meaningful on platforms for which shared libraries are
supported. The different variants of this option are
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for compatibility with various systems. You may use
this option multiple times on the command line: it
affects library searching for -l options which follow
it. This option also implies
--unresolved-symbols=report-all. This option can be
used with -shared. Doing so means that a shared library
is being created but that all of the library's external
references must be resolved by pulling in entries from
static libraries.
-Bsymbolic
When creating a shared library, bind references to
global symbols to the definition within the shared
library, if any. Normally, it is possible for a program
linked against a shared library to override the
definition within the shared library. This option can
also be used with the --export-dynamic option, when
creating a position independent executable, to bind
references to global symbols to the definition within
the executable. This option is only meaningful on ELF
platforms which support shared libraries and position
independent executables.
-Bsymbolic-functions
When creating a shared library, bind references to
global function symbols to the definition within the
shared library, if any. This option can also be used
with the --export-dynamic option, when creating a
position independent executable, to bind references to
global function symbols to the definition within the
executable. This option is only meaningful on ELF
platforms which support shared libraries and position
independent executables.
--dynamic-list=dynamic-list-file
Specify the name of a dynamic list file to the linker.
This is typically used when creating shared libraries to
specify a list of global symbols whose references
shouldn't be bound to the definition within the shared
library, or creating dynamically linked executables to
specify a list of symbols which should be added to the
symbol table in the executable. This option is only
meaningful on ELF platforms which support shared
libraries.
The format of the dynamic list is the same as the
version node without scope and node name. See VERSION
for more information.
--dynamic-list-data
Include all global data symbols to the dynamic list.
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--dynamic-list-cpp-new
Provide the builtin dynamic list for C++ operator new
and delete. It is mainly useful for building shared
libstdc++.
--dynamic-list-cpp-typeinfo
Provide the builtin dynamic list for C++ runtime type
identification.
--check-sections
--no-check-sections
Asks the linker not to check section addresses after
they have been assigned to see if there are any
overlaps. Normally the linker will perform this check,
and if it finds any overlaps it will produce suitable
error messages. The linker does know about, and does
make allowances for sections in overlays. The default
behaviour can be restored by using the command line
switch --check-sections. Section overlap is not usually
checked for relocatable links. You can force checking
in that case by using the --check-sections option.
--copy-dt-needed-entries
--no-copy-dt-needed-entries
This option affects the treatment of dynamic libraries
referred to by DT_NEEDED tags inside ELF dynamic
libraries mentioned on the command line. Normally the
linker won't add a DT_NEEDED tag to the output binary
for each library mentioned in a DT_NEEDED tag in an
input dynamic library. With --copy-dt-needed-entries
specified on the command line however any dynamic
libraries that follow it will have their DT_NEEDED
entries added. The default behaviour can be restored
with --no-copy-dt-needed-entries.
This option also has an effect on the resolution of
symbols in dynamic libraries. With
--copy-dt-needed-entries dynamic libraries mentioned on
the command line will be recursively searched, following
their DT_NEEDED tags to other libraries, in order to
resolve symbols required by the output binary. With the
default setting however the searching of dynamic
libraries that follow it will stop with the dynamic
library itself. No DT_NEEDED links will be traversed to
resolve symbols.
--cref
Output a cross reference table. If a linker map file is
being generated, the cross reference table is printed to
the map file. Otherwise, it is printed on the standard
output.
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The format of the table is intentionally simple, so that
it may be easily processed by a script if necessary.
The symbols are printed out, sorted by name. For each
symbol, a list of file names is given. If the symbol is
defined, the first file listed is the location of the
definition. If the symbol is defined as a common value
then any files where this happens appear next. Finally
any files that reference the symbol are listed.
--no-define-common
This option inhibits the assignment of addresses to
common symbols. The script command
"INHIBIT_COMMON_ALLOCATION" has the same effect.
The --no-define-common option allows decoupling the
decision to assign addresses to Common symbols from the
choice of the output file type; otherwise a non-
Relocatable output type forces assigning addresses to
Common symbols. Using --no-define-common allows Common
symbols that are referenced from a shared library to be
assigned addresses only in the main program. This
eliminates the unused duplicate space in the shared
library, and also prevents any possible confusion over
resolving to the wrong duplicate when there are many
dynamic modules with specialized search paths for
runtime symbol resolution.
--force-group-allocation
This option causes the linker to place section group
members like normal input sections, and to delete the
section groups. This is the default behaviour for a
final link but this option can be used to change the
behaviour of a relocatable link (-r). The script
command "FORCE_GROUP_ALLOCATION" has the same effect.
--defsym=symbol=expression
Create a global symbol in the output file, containing
the absolute address given by expression. You may use
this option as many times as necessary to define
multiple symbols in the command line. A limited form of
arithmetic is supported for the expression in this
context: you may give a hexadecimal constant or the name
of an existing symbol, or use "+" and "-" to add or
subtract hexadecimal constants or symbols. If you need
more elaborate expressions, consider using the linker
command language from a script. Note: there should be
no white space between symbol, the equals sign ("="),
and expression.
--demangle[=style]
--no-demangle
These options control whether to demangle symbol names
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in error messages and other output. When the linker is
told to demangle, it tries to present symbol names in a
readable fashion: it strips leading underscores if they
are used by the object file format, and converts C++
mangled symbol names into user readable names.
Different compilers have different mangling styles. The
optional demangling style argument can be used to choose
an appropriate demangling style for your compiler. The
linker will demangle by default unless the environment
variable COLLECT_NO_DEMANGLE is set. These options may
be used to override the default.
-Ifile
--dynamic-linker=file
Set the name of the dynamic linker. This is only
meaningful when generating dynamically linked ELF
executables. The default dynamic linker is normally
correct; don't use this unless you know what you are
doing.
--no-dynamic-linker
When producing an executable file, omit the request for
a dynamic linker to be used at load-time. This is only
meaningful for ELF executables that contain dynamic
relocations, and usually requires entry point code that
is capable of processing these relocations.
--embedded-relocs
This option is similar to the --emit-relocs option
except that the relocs are stored in a target specific
section. This option is only supported by the BFIN,
CR16 and M68K targets.
--fatal-warnings
--no-fatal-warnings
Treat all warnings as errors. The default behaviour can
be restored with the option --no-fatal-warnings.
--force-exe-suffix
Make sure that an output file has a .exe suffix.
If a successfully built fully linked output file does
not have a ".exe" or ".dll" suffix, this option forces
the linker to copy the output file to one of the same
name with a ".exe" suffix. This option is useful when
using unmodified Unix makefiles on a Microsoft Windows
host, since some versions of Windows won't run an image
unless it ends in a ".exe" suffix.
--gc-sections
--no-gc-sections
Enable garbage collection of unused input sections. It
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is ignored on targets that do not support this option.
The default behaviour (of not performing this garbage
collection) can be restored by specifying
--no-gc-sections on the command line. Note that garbage
collection for COFF and PE format targets is supported,
but the implementation is currently considered to be
experimental.
--gc-sections decides which input sections are used by
examining symbols and relocations. The section
containing the entry symbol and all sections containing
symbols undefined on the command-line will be kept, as
will sections containing symbols referenced by dynamic
objects. Note that when building shared libraries, the
linker must assume that any visible symbol is
referenced. Once this initial set of sections has been
determined, the linker recursively marks as used any
section referenced by their relocations. See --entry
and --undefined.
This option can be set when doing a partial link
(enabled with option -r). In this case the root of
symbols kept must be explicitly specified either by an
--entry or --undefined option or by a "ENTRY" command in
the linker script.
--print-gc-sections
--no-print-gc-sections
List all sections removed by garbage collection. The
listing is printed on stderr. This option is only
effective if garbage collection has been enabled via the
--gc-sections) option. The default behaviour (of not
listing the sections that are removed) can be restored
by specifying --no-print-gc-sections on the command
line.
--gc-keep-exported
When --gc-sections is enabled, this option prevents
garbage collection of unused input sections that contain
global symbols having default or protected visibility.
This option is intended to be used for executables where
unreferenced sections would otherwise be garbage
collected regardless of the external visibility of
contained symbols. Note that this option has no effect
when linking shared objects since it is already the
default behaviour. This option is only supported for
ELF format targets.
--print-output-format
Print the name of the default output format (perhaps
influenced by other command-line options). This is the
string that would appear in an "OUTPUT_FORMAT" linker
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script command.
--print-memory-usage
Print used size, total size and used size of memory
regions created with the MEMORY command. This is useful
on embedded targets to have a quick view of amount of
free memory. The format of the output has one headline
and one line per region. It is both human readable and
easily parsable by tools. Here is an example of an
output:
Memory region Used Size Region Size %age Used
ROM: 256 KB 1 MB 25.00%
RAM: 32 B 2 GB 0.00%
--help
Print a summary of the command-line options on the
standard output and exit.
--target-help
Print a summary of all target specific options on the
standard output and exit.
-Map=mapfile
Print a link map to the file mapfile. See the
description of the -M option, above.
--no-keep-memory
ld normally optimizes for speed over memory usage by
caching the symbol tables of input files in memory.
This option tells ld to instead optimize for memory
usage, by rereading the symbol tables as necessary.
This may be required if ld runs out of memory space
while linking a large executable.
--no-undefined
-z defs
Report unresolved symbol references from regular object
files. This is done even if the linker is creating a
non-symbolic shared library. The switch
--[no-]allow-shlib-undefined controls the behaviour for
reporting unresolved references found in shared
libraries being linked in.
The effects of this option can be reverted by using "-z
undefs".
--allow-multiple-definition
-z muldefs
Normally when a symbol is defined multiple times, the
linker will report a fatal error. These options allow
multiple definitions and the first definition will be
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used.
--allow-shlib-undefined
--no-allow-shlib-undefined
Allows or disallows undefined symbols in shared
libraries. This switch is similar to --no-undefined
except that it determines the behaviour when the
undefined symbols are in a shared library rather than a
regular object file. It does not affect how undefined
symbols in regular object files are handled.
The default behaviour is to report errors for any
undefined symbols referenced in shared libraries if the
linker is being used to create an executable, but to
allow them if the linker is being used to create a
shared library.
The reasons for allowing undefined symbol references in
shared libraries specified at link time are that:
o A shared library specified at link time may not be
the same as the one that is available at load time,
so the symbol might actually be resolvable at load
time.
o There are some operating systems, eg BeOS and HPPA,
where undefined symbols in shared libraries are
normal.
The BeOS kernel for example patches shared libraries
at load time to select whichever function is most
appropriate for the current architecture. This is
used, for example, to dynamically select an
appropriate memset function.
--no-undefined-version
Normally when a symbol has an undefined version, the
linker will ignore it. This option disallows symbols
with undefined version and a fatal error will be issued
instead.
--default-symver
Create and use a default symbol version (the soname) for
unversioned exported symbols.
--default-imported-symver
Create and use a default symbol version (the soname) for
unversioned imported symbols.
--no-warn-mismatch
Normally ld will give an error if you try to link
together input files that are mismatched for some
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reason, perhaps because they have been compiled for
different processors or for different endiannesses.
This option tells ld that it should silently permit such
possible errors. This option should only be used with
care, in cases when you have taken some special action
that ensures that the linker errors are inappropriate.
--no-warn-search-mismatch
Normally ld will give a warning if it finds an
incompatible library during a library search. This
option silences the warning.
--no-whole-archive
Turn off the effect of the --whole-archive option for
subsequent archive files.
--noinhibit-exec
Retain the executable output file whenever it is still
usable. Normally, the linker will not produce an output
file if it encounters errors during the link process; it
exits without writing an output file when it issues any
error whatsoever.
-nostdlib
Only search library directories explicitly specified on
the command line. Library directories specified in
linker scripts (including linker scripts specified on
the command line) are ignored.
--oformat=output-format
ld may be configured to support more than one kind of
object file. If your ld is configured this way, you can
use the --oformat option to specify the binary format
for the output object file. Even when ld is configured
to support alternative object formats, you don't usually
need to specify this, as ld should be configured to
produce as a default output format the most usual format
on each machine. output-format is a text string, the
name of a particular format supported by the BFD
libraries. (You can list the available binary formats
with objdump -i.) The script command "OUTPUT_FORMAT"
can also specify the output format, but this option
overrides it.
--out-implib file
Create an import library in file corresponding to the
executable the linker is generating (eg. a DLL or ELF
program). This import library (which should be called
"*.dll.a" or "*.a" for DLLs) may be used to link clients
against the generated executable; this behaviour makes
it possible to skip a separate import library creation
step (eg. "dlltool" for DLLs). This option is only
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available for the i386 PE and ELF targetted ports of the
linker.
-pie
--pic-executable
Create a position independent executable. This is
currently only supported on ELF platforms. Position
independent executables are similar to shared libraries
in that they are relocated by the dynamic linker to the
virtual address the OS chooses for them (which can vary
between invocations). Like normal dynamically linked
executables they can be executed and symbols defined in
the executable cannot be overridden by shared libraries.
-qmagic
This option is ignored for Linux compatibility.
-Qy This option is ignored for SVR4 compatibility.
--relax
--no-relax
An option with machine dependent effects. This option
is only supported on a few targets.
On some platforms the --relax option performs target
specific, global optimizations that become possible when
the linker resolves addressing in the program, such as
relaxing address modes, synthesizing new instructions,
selecting shorter version of current instructions, and
combining constant values.
On some platforms these link time global optimizations
may make symbolic debugging of the resulting executable
impossible. This is known to be the case for the
Matsushita MN10200 and MN10300 family of processors.
On platforms where this is not supported, --relax is
accepted, but ignored.
On platforms where --relax is accepted the option
--no-relax can be used to disable the feature.
--retain-symbols-file=filename
Retain only the symbols listed in the file filename,
discarding all others. filename is simply a flat file,
with one symbol name per line. This option is
especially useful in environments (such as VxWorks)
where a large global symbol table is accumulated
gradually, to conserve run-time memory.
--retain-symbols-file does not discard undefined
symbols, or symbols needed for relocations.
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You may only specify --retain-symbols-file once in the
command line. It overrides -s and -S.
-rpath=dir
Add a directory to the runtime library search path.
This is used when linking an ELF executable with shared
objects. All -rpath arguments are concatenated and
passed to the runtime linker, which uses them to locate
shared objects at runtime. The -rpath option is also
used when locating shared objects which are needed by
shared objects explicitly included in the link; see the
description of the -rpath-link option. If -rpath is not
used when linking an ELF executable, the contents of the
environment variable "LD_RUN_PATH" will be used if it is
defined.
The -rpath option may also be used on SunOS. By
default, on SunOS, the linker will form a runtime search
path out of all the -L options it is given. If a -rpath
option is used, the runtime search path will be formed
exclusively using the -rpath options, ignoring the -L
options. This can be useful when using gcc, which adds
many -L options which may be on NFS mounted file
systems.
For compatibility with other ELF linkers, if the -R
option is followed by a directory name, rather than a
file name, it is treated as the -rpath option.
-rpath-link=dir
When using ELF or SunOS, one shared library may require
another. This happens when an "ld -shared" link
includes a shared library as one of the input files.
When the linker encounters such a dependency when doing
a non-shared, non-relocatable link, it will
automatically try to locate the required shared library
and include it in the link, if it is not included
explicitly. In such a case, the -rpath-link option
specifies the first set of directories to search. The
-rpath-link option may specify a sequence of directory
names either by specifying a list of names separated by
colons, or by appearing multiple times.
The tokens $ORIGIN and $LIB can appear in these search
directories. They will be replaced by the full path to
the directory containing the program or shared object in
the case of $ORIGIN and either lib - for 32-bit binaries
- or lib64 - for 64-bit binaries - in the case of $LIB.
The alternative form of these tokens - ${ORIGIN} and
${LIB} can also be used. The token $PLATFORM is not
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supported.
This option should be used with caution as it overrides
the search path that may have been hard compiled into a
shared library. In such a case it is possible to use
unintentionally a different search path than the runtime
linker would do.
The linker uses the following search paths to locate
required shared libraries:
1. Any directories specified by -rpath-link options.
2. Any directories specified by -rpath options. The
difference between -rpath and -rpath-link is that
directories specified by -rpath options are included
in the executable and used at runtime, whereas the
-rpath-link option is only effective at link time.
Searching -rpath in this way is only supported by
native linkers and cross linkers which have been
configured with the --with-sysroot option.
3. On an ELF system, for native linkers, if the -rpath
and -rpath-link options were not used, search the
contents of the environment variable "LD_RUN_PATH".
4. On SunOS, if the -rpath option was not used, search
any directories specified using -L options.
5. For a native linker, search the contents of the
environment variable "LD_LIBRARY_PATH".
6. For a native ELF linker, the directories in
"DT_RUNPATH" or "DT_RPATH" of a shared library are
searched for shared libraries needed by it. The
"DT_RPATH" entries are ignored if "DT_RUNPATH"
entries exist.
7. The default directories, normally /lib and /usr/lib.
8. For a native linker on an ELF system, if the file
/etc/ld.so.conf exists, the list of directories
found in that file.
If the required shared library is not found, the linker
will issue a warning and continue with the link.
-shared
-Bshareable
Create a shared library. This is currently only
supported on ELF, XCOFF and SunOS platforms. On SunOS,
the linker will automatically create a shared library if
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the -e option is not used and there are undefined
symbols in the link.
--sort-common
--sort-common=ascending
--sort-common=descending
This option tells ld to sort the common symbols by
alignment in ascending or descending order when it
places them in the appropriate output sections. The
symbol alignments considered are sixteen-byte or larger,
eight-byte, four-byte, two-byte, and one-byte. This is
to prevent gaps between symbols due to alignment
constraints. If no sorting order is specified, then
descending order is assumed.
--sort-section=name
This option will apply "SORT_BY_NAME" to all wildcard
section patterns in the linker script.
--sort-section=alignment
This option will apply "SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT" to all
wildcard section patterns in the linker script.
--spare-dynamic-tags=count
This option specifies the number of empty slots to leave
in the .dynamic section of ELF shared objects. Empty
slots may be needed by post processing tools, such as
the prelinker. The default is 5.
--split-by-file[=size]
Similar to --split-by-reloc but creates a new output
section for each input file when size is reached. size
defaults to a size of 1 if not given.
--split-by-reloc[=count]
Tries to creates extra sections in the output file so
that no single output section in the file contains more
than count relocations. This is useful when generating
huge relocatable files for downloading into certain real
time kernels with the COFF object file format; since
COFF cannot represent more than 65535 relocations in a
single section. Note that this will fail to work with
object file formats which do not support arbitrary
sections. The linker will not split up individual input
sections for redistribution, so if a single input
section contains more than count relocations one output
section will contain that many relocations. count
defaults to a value of 32768.
--stats
Compute and display statistics about the operation of
the linker, such as execution time and memory usage.
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--sysroot=directory
Use directory as the location of the sysroot, overriding
the configure-time default. This option is only
supported by linkers that were configured using
--with-sysroot.
--task-link
This is used by COFF/PE based targets to create a task-
linked object file where all of the global symbols have
been converted to statics.
--traditional-format
For some targets, the output of ld is different in some
ways from the output of some existing linker. This
switch requests ld to use the traditional format
instead.
For example, on SunOS, ld combines duplicate entries in
the symbol string table. This can reduce the size of an
output file with full debugging information by over 30
percent. Unfortunately, the SunOS "dbx" program can not
read the resulting program ("gdb" has no trouble). The
--traditional-format switch tells ld to not combine
duplicate entries.
--section-start=sectionname=org
Locate a section in the output file at the absolute
address given by org. You may use this option as many
times as necessary to locate multiple sections in the
command line. org must be a single hexadecimal integer;
for compatibility with other linkers, you may omit the
leading 0x usually associated with hexadecimal values.
Note: there should be no white space between
sectionname, the equals sign ("="), and org.
-Tbss=org
-Tdata=org
-Ttext=org
Same as --section-start, with ".bss", ".data" or ".text"
as the sectionname.
-Ttext-segment=org
When creating an ELF executable, it will set the address
of the first byte of the text segment.
-Trodata-segment=org
When creating an ELF executable or shared object for a
target where the read-only data is in its own segment
separate from the executable text, it will set the
address of the first byte of the read-only data segment.
-Tldata-segment=org
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When creating an ELF executable or shared object for
x86-64 medium memory model, it will set the address of
the first byte of the ldata segment.
--unresolved-symbols=method
Determine how to handle unresolved symbols. There are
four possible values for method:
ignore-all
Do not report any unresolved symbols.
report-all
Report all unresolved symbols. This is the default.
ignore-in-object-files
Report unresolved symbols that are contained in
shared libraries, but ignore them if they come from
regular object files.
ignore-in-shared-libs
Report unresolved symbols that come from regular
object files, but ignore them if they come from
shared libraries. This can be useful when creating
a dynamic binary and it is known that all the shared
libraries that it should be referencing are included
on the linker's command line.
The behaviour for shared libraries on their own can also
be controlled by the --[no-]allow-shlib-undefined
option.
Normally the linker will generate an error message for
each reported unresolved symbol but the option
--warn-unresolved-symbols can change this to a warning.
--dll-verbose
--verbose[=NUMBER]
Display the version number for ld and list the linker
emulations supported. Display which input files can and
cannot be opened. Display the linker script being used
by the linker. If the optional NUMBER argument > 1,
plugin symbol status will also be displayed.
--version-script=version-scriptfile
Specify the name of a version script to the linker.
This is typically used when creating shared libraries to
specify additional information about the version
hierarchy for the library being created. This option is
only fully supported on ELF platforms which support
shared libraries; see VERSION. It is partially
supported on PE platforms, which can use version scripts
to filter symbol visibility in auto-export mode: any
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symbols marked local in the version script will not be
exported.
--warn-common
Warn when a common symbol is combined with another
common symbol or with a symbol definition. Unix linkers
allow this somewhat sloppy practice, but linkers on some
other operating systems do not. This option allows you
to find potential problems from combining global
symbols. Unfortunately, some C libraries use this
practice, so you may get some warnings about symbols in
the libraries as well as in your programs.
There are three kinds of global symbols, illustrated
here by C examples:
int i = 1;
A definition, which goes in the initialized data
section of the output file.
extern int i;
An undefined reference, which does not allocate
space. There must be either a definition or a
common symbol for the variable somewhere.
int i;
A common symbol. If there are only (one or more)
common symbols for a variable, it goes in the
uninitialized data area of the output file. The
linker merges multiple common symbols for the same
variable into a single symbol. If they are of
different sizes, it picks the largest size. The
linker turns a common symbol into a declaration, if
there is a definition of the same variable.
The --warn-common option can produce five kinds of
warnings. Each warning consists of a pair of lines: the
first describes the symbol just encountered, and the
second describes the previous symbol encountered with
the same name. One or both of the two symbols will be a
common symbol.
1. Turning a common symbol into a reference, because
there is already a definition for the symbol.
<file>(<section>): warning: common of `<symbol>'
overridden by definition
<file>(<section>): warning: defined here
2. Turning a common symbol into a reference, because a
later definition for the symbol is encountered.
This is the same as the previous case, except that
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the symbols are encountered in a different order.
<file>(<section>): warning: definition of `<symbol>'
overriding common
<file>(<section>): warning: common is here
3. Merging a common symbol with a previous same-sized
common symbol.
<file>(<section>): warning: multiple common
of `<symbol>'
<file>(<section>): warning: previous common is here
4. Merging a common symbol with a previous larger
common symbol.
<file>(<section>): warning: common of `<symbol>'
overridden by larger common
<file>(<section>): warning: larger common is here
5. Merging a common symbol with a previous smaller
common symbol. This is the same as the previous
case, except that the symbols are encountered in a
different order.
<file>(<section>): warning: common of `<symbol>'
overriding smaller common
<file>(<section>): warning: smaller common is here
--warn-constructors
Warn if any global constructors are used. This is only
useful for a few object file formats. For formats like
COFF or ELF, the linker can not detect the use of global
constructors.
--warn-multiple-gp
Warn if multiple global pointer values are required in
the output file. This is only meaningful for certain
processors, such as the Alpha. Specifically, some
processors put large-valued constants in a special
section. A special register (the global pointer) points
into the middle of this section, so that constants can
be loaded efficiently via a base-register relative
addressing mode. Since the offset in base-register
relative mode is fixed and relatively small (e.g., 16
bits), this limits the maximum size of the constant
pool. Thus, in large programs, it is often necessary to
use multiple global pointer values in order to be able
to address all possible constants. This option causes a
warning to be issued whenever this case occurs.
--warn-once
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Only warn once for each undefined symbol, rather than
once per module which refers to it.
--warn-section-align
Warn if the address of an output section is changed
because of alignment. Typically, the alignment will be
set by an input section. The address will only be
changed if it not explicitly specified; that is, if the
"SECTIONS" command does not specify a start address for
the section.
--warn-shared-textrel
Warn if the linker adds a DT_TEXTREL to a shared object.
--warn-alternate-em
Warn if an object has alternate ELF machine code.
--warn-unresolved-symbols
If the linker is going to report an unresolved symbol
(see the option --unresolved-symbols) it will normally
generate an error. This option makes it generate a
warning instead.
--error-unresolved-symbols
This restores the linker's default behaviour of
generating errors when it is reporting unresolved
symbols.
--whole-archive
For each archive mentioned on the command line after the
--whole-archive option, include every object file in the
archive in the link, rather than searching the archive
for the required object files. This is normally used to
turn an archive file into a shared library, forcing
every object to be included in the resulting shared
library. This option may be used more than once.
Two notes when using this option from gcc: First, gcc
doesn't know about this option, so you have to use
-Wl,-whole-archive. Second, don't forget to use
-Wl,-no-whole-archive after your list of archives,
because gcc will add its own list of archives to your
link and you may not want this flag to affect those as
well.
--wrap=symbol
Use a wrapper function for symbol. Any undefined
reference to symbol will be resolved to "__wrap_symbol".
Any undefined reference to "__real_symbol" will be
resolved to symbol.
This can be used to provide a wrapper for a system
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function. The wrapper function should be called
"__wrap_symbol". If it wishes to call the system
function, it should call "__real_symbol".
Here is a trivial example:
void *
__wrap_malloc (size_t c)
{
printf ("malloc called with %zu\n", c);
return __real_malloc (c);
}
If you link other code with this file using --wrap
malloc, then all calls to "malloc" will call the
function "__wrap_malloc" instead. The call to
"__real_malloc" in "__wrap_malloc" will call the real
"malloc" function.
You may wish to provide a "__real_malloc" function as
well, so that links without the --wrap option will
succeed. If you do this, you should not put the
definition of "__real_malloc" in the same file as
"__wrap_malloc"; if you do, the assembler may resolve
the call before the linker has a chance to wrap it to
"malloc".
--eh-frame-hdr
--no-eh-frame-hdr
Request (--eh-frame-hdr) or suppress (--no-eh-frame-hdr)
the creation of ".eh_frame_hdr" section and ELF
"PT_GNU_EH_FRAME" segment header.
--no-ld-generated-unwind-info
Request creation of ".eh_frame" unwind info for linker
generated code sections like PLT. This option is on by
default if linker generated unwind info is supported.
--enable-new-dtags
--disable-new-dtags
This linker can create the new dynamic tags in ELF. But
the older ELF systems may not understand them. If you
specify --enable-new-dtags, the new dynamic tags will be
created as needed and older dynamic tags will be
omitted. If you specify --disable-new-dtags, no new
dynamic tags will be created. By default, the new
dynamic tags are not created. Note that those options
are only available for ELF systems.
--hash-size=number
Set the default size of the linker's hash tables to a
prime number close to number. Increasing this value can
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reduce the length of time it takes the linker to perform
its tasks, at the expense of increasing the linker's
memory requirements. Similarly reducing this value can
reduce the memory requirements at the expense of speed.
--hash-style=style
Set the type of linker's hash table(s). style can be
either "sysv" for classic ELF ".hash" section, "gnu" for
new style GNU ".gnu.hash" section or "both" for both the
classic ELF ".hash" and new style GNU ".gnu.hash" hash
tables. The default is "sysv".
--compress-debug-sections=none
--compress-debug-sections=zlib
--compress-debug-sections=zlib-gnu
--compress-debug-sections=zlib-gabi
On ELF platforms, these options control how DWARF debug
sections are compressed using zlib.
--compress-debug-sections=none doesn't compress DWARF
debug sections. --compress-debug-sections=zlib-gnu
compresses DWARF debug sections and renames them to
begin with .zdebug instead of .debug.
--compress-debug-sections=zlib-gabi also compresses
DWARF debug sections, but rather than renaming them it
sets the SHF_COMPRESSED flag in the sections' headers.
The --compress-debug-sections=zlib option is an alias
for --compress-debug-sections=zlib-gabi.
Note that this option overrides any compression in input
debug sections, so if a binary is linked with
--compress-debug-sections=none for example, then any
compressed debug sections in input files will be
uncompressed before they are copied into the output
binary.
The default compression behaviour varies depending upon
the target involved and the configure options used to
build the toolchain. The default can be determined by
examining the output from the linker's --help option.
--reduce-memory-overheads
This option reduces memory requirements at ld runtime,
at the expense of linking speed. This was introduced to
select the old O(n^2) algorithm for link map file
generation, rather than the new O(n) algorithm which
uses about 40% more memory for symbol storage.
Another effect of the switch is to set the default hash
table size to 1021, which again saves memory at the cost
of lengthening the linker's run time. This is not done
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however if the --hash-size switch has been used.
The --reduce-memory-overheads switch may be also be used
to enable other tradeoffs in future versions of the
linker.
--build-id
--build-id=style
Request the creation of a ".note.gnu.build-id" ELF note
section or a ".buildid" COFF section. The contents of
the note are unique bits identifying this linked file.
style can be "uuid" to use 128 random bits, "sha1" to
use a 160-bit SHA1 hash on the normative parts of the
output contents, "md5" to use a 128-bit MD5 hash on the
normative parts of the output contents, or "0xhexstring"
to use a chosen bit string specified as an even number
of hexadecimal digits ("-" and ":" characters between
digit pairs are ignored). If style is omitted, "sha1"
is used.
The "md5" and "sha1" styles produces an identifier that
is always the same in an identical output file, but will
be unique among all nonidentical output files. It is
not intended to be compared as a checksum for the file's
contents. A linked file may be changed later by other
tools, but the build ID bit string identifying the
original linked file does not change.
Passing "none" for style disables the setting from any
"--build-id" options earlier on the command line.
The i386 PE linker supports the -shared option, which causes
the output to be a dynamically linked library (DLL) instead
of a normal executable. You should name the output "*.dll"
when you use this option. In addition, the linker fully
supports the standard "*.def" files, which may be specified
on the linker command line like an object file (in fact, it
should precede archives it exports symbols from, to ensure
that they get linked in, just like a normal object file).
In addition to the options common to all targets, the i386
PE linker support additional command line options that are
specific to the i386 PE target. Options that take values
may be separated from their values by either a space or an
equals sign.
--add-stdcall-alias
If given, symbols with a stdcall suffix (@nn) will be
exported as-is and also with the suffix stripped. [This
option is specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the
linker]
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--base-file file
Use file as the name of a file in which to save the base
addresses of all the relocations needed for generating
DLLs with dlltool. [This is an i386 PE specific option]
--dll
Create a DLL instead of a regular executable. You may
also use -shared or specify a "LIBRARY" in a given
".def" file. [This option is specific to the i386 PE
targeted port of the linker]
--enable-long-section-names
--disable-long-section-names
The PE variants of the COFF object format add an
extension that permits the use of section names longer
than eight characters, the normal limit for COFF. By
default, these names are only allowed in object files,
as fully-linked executable images do not carry the COFF
string table required to support the longer names. As a
GNU extension, it is possible to allow their use in
executable images as well, or to (probably pointlessly!)
disallow it in object files, by using these two options.
Executable images generated with these long section
names are slightly non-standard, carrying as they do a
string table, and may generate confusing output when
examined with non-GNU PE-aware tools, such as file
viewers and dumpers. However, GDB relies on the use of
PE long section names to find Dwarf-2 debug information
sections in an executable image at runtime, and so if
neither option is specified on the command-line, ld will
enable long section names, overriding the default and
technically correct behaviour, when it finds the
presence of debug information while linking an
executable image and not stripping symbols. [This
option is valid for all PE targeted ports of the linker]
--enable-stdcall-fixup
--disable-stdcall-fixup
If the link finds a symbol that it cannot resolve, it
will attempt to do "fuzzy linking" by looking for
another defined symbol that differs only in the format
of the symbol name (cdecl vs stdcall) and will resolve
that symbol by linking to the match. For example, the
undefined symbol "_foo" might be linked to the function
"_foo@12", or the undefined symbol "_bar@16" might be
linked to the function "_bar". When the linker does
this, it prints a warning, since it normally should have
failed to link, but sometimes import libraries generated
from third-party dlls may need this feature to be
usable. If you specify --enable-stdcall-fixup, this
feature is fully enabled and warnings are not printed.
If you specify --disable-stdcall-fixup, this feature is
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disabled and such mismatches are considered to be
errors. [This option is specific to the i386 PE
targeted port of the linker]
--leading-underscore
--no-leading-underscore
For most targets default symbol-prefix is an underscore
and is defined in target's description. By this option
it is possible to disable/enable the default underscore
symbol-prefix.
--export-all-symbols
If given, all global symbols in the objects used to
build a DLL will be exported by the DLL. Note that this
is the default if there otherwise wouldn't be any
exported symbols. When symbols are explicitly exported
via DEF files or implicitly exported via function
attributes, the default is to not export anything else
unless this option is given. Note that the symbols
"DllMain@12", "DllEntryPoint@0", "DllMainCRTStartup@12",
and "impure_ptr" will not be automatically exported.
Also, symbols imported from other DLLs will not be re-
exported, nor will symbols specifying the DLL's internal
layout such as those beginning with "_head_" or ending
with "_iname". In addition, no symbols from "libgcc",
"libstd++", "libmingw32", or "crtX.o" will be exported.
Symbols whose names begin with "__rtti_" or "__builtin_"
will not be exported, to help with C++ DLLs. Finally,
there is an extensive list of cygwin-private symbols
that are not exported (obviously, this applies on when
building DLLs for cygwin targets). These cygwin-
excludes are: "_cygwin_dll_entry@12",
"_cygwin_crt0_common@8",
"_cygwin_noncygwin_dll_entry@12", "_fmode",
"_impure_ptr", "cygwin_attach_dll", "cygwin_premain0",
"cygwin_premain1", "cygwin_premain2", "cygwin_premain3",
and "environ". [This option is specific to the i386 PE
targeted port of the linker]
--exclude-symbols symbol,symbol,...
Specifies a list of symbols which should not be
automatically exported. The symbol names may be
delimited by commas or colons. [This option is specific
to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--exclude-all-symbols
Specifies no symbols should be automatically exported.
[This option is specific to the i386 PE targeted port of
the linker]
--file-alignment
Specify the file alignment. Sections in the file will
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always begin at file offsets which are multiples of this
number. This defaults to 512. [This option is specific
to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--heap reserve
--heap reserve,commit
Specify the number of bytes of memory to reserve (and
optionally commit) to be used as heap for this program.
The default is 1MB reserved, 4K committed. [This option
is specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--image-base value
Use value as the base address of your program or dll.
This is the lowest memory location that will be used
when your program or dll is loaded. To reduce the need
to relocate and improve performance of your dlls, each
should have a unique base address and not overlap any
other dlls. The default is 0x400000 for executables,
and 0x10000000 for dlls. [This option is specific to
the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--kill-at
If given, the stdcall suffixes (@nn) will be stripped
from symbols before they are exported. [This option is
specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--large-address-aware
If given, the appropriate bit in the "Characteristics"
field of the COFF header is set to indicate that this
executable supports virtual addresses greater than 2
gigabytes. This should be used in conjunction with the
/3GB or /USERVA=value megabytes switch in the
"[operating systems]" section of the BOOT.INI.
Otherwise, this bit has no effect. [This option is
specific to PE targeted ports of the linker]
--disable-large-address-aware
Reverts the effect of a previous --large-address-aware
option. This is useful if --large-address-aware is
always set by the compiler driver (e.g. Cygwin gcc) and
the executable does not support virtual addresses
greater than 2 gigabytes. [This option is specific to
PE targeted ports of the linker]
--major-image-version value
Sets the major number of the "image version". Defaults
to 1. [This option is specific to the i386 PE targeted
port of the linker]
--major-os-version value
Sets the major number of the "os version". Defaults to
4. [This option is specific to the i386 PE targeted
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port of the linker]
--major-subsystem-version value
Sets the major number of the "subsystem version".
Defaults to 4. [This option is specific to the i386 PE
targeted port of the linker]
--minor-image-version value
Sets the minor number of the "image version". Defaults
to 0. [This option is specific to the i386 PE targeted
port of the linker]
--minor-os-version value
Sets the minor number of the "os version". Defaults to
0. [This option is specific to the i386 PE targeted
port of the linker]
--minor-subsystem-version value
Sets the minor number of the "subsystem version".
Defaults to 0. [This option is specific to the i386 PE
targeted port of the linker]
--output-def file
The linker will create the file file which will contain
a DEF file corresponding to the DLL the linker is
generating. This DEF file (which should be called
"*.def") may be used to create an import library with
"dlltool" or may be used as a reference to automatically
or implicitly exported symbols. [This option is
specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--enable-auto-image-base
--enable-auto-image-base=value
Automatically choose the image base for DLLs, optionally
starting with base value, unless one is specified using
the "--image-base" argument. By using a hash generated
from the dllname to create unique image bases for each
DLL, in-memory collisions and relocations which can
delay program execution are avoided. [This option is
specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--disable-auto-image-base
Do not automatically generate a unique image base. If
there is no user-specified image base ("--image-base")
then use the platform default. [This option is specific
to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--dll-search-prefix string
When linking dynamically to a dll without an import
library, search for "<string><basename>.dll" in
preference to "lib<basename>.dll". This behaviour allows
easy distinction between DLLs built for the various
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"subplatforms": native, cygwin, uwin, pw, etc. For
instance, cygwin DLLs typically use
"--dll-search-prefix=cyg". [This option is specific to
the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--enable-auto-import
Do sophisticated linking of "_symbol" to "__imp__symbol"
for DATA imports from DLLs, and create the necessary
thunking symbols when building the import libraries with
those DATA exports. Note: Use of the 'auto-import'
extension will cause the text section of the image file
to be made writable. This does not conform to the PE-
COFF format specification published by Microsoft.
Note - use of the 'auto-import' extension will also
cause read only data which would normally be placed into
the .rdata section to be placed into the .data section
instead. This is in order to work around a problem with
consts that is described here:
http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2004-09/msg01101.html
Using 'auto-import' generally will 'just work' -- but
sometimes you may see this message:
"variable '<var>' can't be auto-imported. Please read
the documentation for ld's "--enable-auto-import" for
details."
This message occurs when some (sub)expression accesses
an address ultimately given by the sum of two constants
(Win32 import tables only allow one). Instances where
this may occur include accesses to member fields of
struct variables imported from a DLL, as well as using a
constant index into an array variable imported from a
DLL. Any multiword variable (arrays, structs, long
long, etc) may trigger this error condition. However,
regardless of the exact data type of the offending
exported variable, ld will always detect it, issue the
warning, and exit.
There are several ways to address this difficulty,
regardless of the data type of the exported variable:
One way is to use --enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc switch.
This leaves the task of adjusting references in your
client code for runtime environment, so this method
works only when runtime environment supports this
feature.
A second solution is to force one of the 'constants' to
be a variable -- that is, unknown and un-optimizable at
compile time. For arrays, there are two possibilities:
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a) make the indexee (the array's address) a variable, or
b) make the 'constant' index a variable. Thus:
extern type extern_array[];
extern_array[1] -->
{ volatile type *t=extern_array; t[1] }
or
extern type extern_array[];
extern_array[1] -->
{ volatile int t=1; extern_array[t] }
For structs (and most other multiword data types) the
only option is to make the struct itself (or the long
long, or the ...) variable:
extern struct s extern_struct;
extern_struct.field -->
{ volatile struct s *t=&extern_struct; t->field }
or
extern long long extern_ll;
extern_ll -->
{ volatile long long * local_ll=&extern_ll; *local_ll }
A third method of dealing with this difficulty is to
abandon 'auto-import' for the offending symbol and mark
it with "__declspec(dllimport)". However, in practice
that requires using compile-time #defines to indicate
whether you are building a DLL, building client code
that will link to the DLL, or merely building/linking to
a static library. In making the choice between the
various methods of resolving the 'direct address with
constant offset' problem, you should consider typical
real-world usage:
Original:
--foo.h
extern int arr[];
--foo.c
#include "foo.h"
void main(int argc, char **argv){
printf("%d\n",arr[1]);
}
Solution 1:
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--foo.h
extern int arr[];
--foo.c
#include "foo.h"
void main(int argc, char **argv){
/* This workaround is for win32 and cygwin; do not "optimize" */
volatile int *parr = arr;
printf("%d\n",parr[1]);
}
Solution 2:
--foo.h
/* Note: auto-export is assumed (no __declspec(dllexport)) */
#if (defined(_WIN32) || defined(__CYGWIN__)) && \
!(defined(FOO_BUILD_DLL) || defined(FOO_STATIC))
#define FOO_IMPORT __declspec(dllimport)
#else
#define FOO_IMPORT
#endif
extern FOO_IMPORT int arr[];
--foo.c
#include "foo.h"
void main(int argc, char **argv){
printf("%d\n",arr[1]);
}
A fourth way to avoid this problem is to re-code your
library to use a functional interface rather than a data
interface for the offending variables (e.g. set_foo()
and get_foo() accessor functions). [This option is
specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--disable-auto-import
Do not attempt to do sophisticated linking of "_symbol"
to "__imp__symbol" for DATA imports from DLLs. [This
option is specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the
linker]
--enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc
If your code contains expressions described in
--enable-auto-import section, that is, DATA imports from
DLL with non-zero offset, this switch will create a
vector of 'runtime pseudo relocations' which can be used
by runtime environment to adjust references to such data
in your client code. [This option is specific to the
i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--disable-runtime-pseudo-reloc
Do not create pseudo relocations for non-zero offset
DATA imports from DLLs. [This option is specific to the
i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
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--enable-extra-pe-debug
Show additional debug info related to auto-import symbol
thunking. [This option is specific to the i386 PE
targeted port of the linker]
--section-alignment
Sets the section alignment. Sections in memory will
always begin at addresses which are a multiple of this
number. Defaults to 0x1000. [This option is specific
to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--stack reserve
--stack reserve,commit
Specify the number of bytes of memory to reserve (and
optionally commit) to be used as stack for this program.
The default is 2MB reserved, 4K committed. [This option
is specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
--subsystem which
--subsystem which:major
--subsystem which:major.minor
Specifies the subsystem under which your program will
execute. The legal values for which are "native",
"windows", "console", "posix", and "xbox". You may
optionally set the subsystem version also. Numeric
values are also accepted for which. [This option is
specific to the i386 PE targeted port of the linker]
The following options set flags in the
"DllCharacteristics" field of the PE file header:
[These options are specific to PE targeted ports of the
linker]
--high-entropy-va
Image is compatible with 64-bit address space layout
randomization (ASLR).
--dynamicbase
The image base address may be relocated using address
space layout randomization (ASLR). This feature was
introduced with MS Windows Vista for i386 PE targets.
--forceinteg
Code integrity checks are enforced.
--nxcompat
The image is compatible with the Data Execution
Prevention. This feature was introduced with MS Windows
XP SP2 for i386 PE targets.
--no-isolation
Although the image understands isolation, do not isolate
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the image.
--no-seh
The image does not use SEH. No SE handler may be called
from this image.
--no-bind
Do not bind this image.
--wdmdriver
The driver uses the MS Windows Driver Model.
--tsaware
The image is Terminal Server aware.
--insert-timestamp
--no-insert-timestamp
Insert a real timestamp into the image. This is the
default behaviour as it matches legacy code and it means
that the image will work with other, proprietary tools.
The problem with this default is that it will result in
slightly different images being produced each time the
same sources are linked. The option
--no-insert-timestamp can be used to insert a zero value
for the timestamp, this ensuring that binaries produced
from identical sources will compare identically.
The C6X uClinux target uses a binary format called DSBT to
support shared libraries. Each shared library in the system
needs to have a unique index; all executables use an index
of 0.
--dsbt-size size
This option sets the number of entries in the DSBT of
the current executable or shared library to size. The
default is to create a table with 64 entries.
--dsbt-index index
This option sets the DSBT index of the current
executable or shared library to index. The default is
0, which is appropriate for generating executables. If
a shared library is generated with a DSBT index of 0,
the "R_C6000_DSBT_INDEX" relocs are copied into the
output file.
The --no-merge-exidx-entries switch disables the merging
of adjacent exidx entries in frame unwind info.
The 68HC11 and 68HC12 linkers support specific options to
control the memory bank switching mapping and trampoline
code generation.
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--no-trampoline
This option disables the generation of trampoline. By
default a trampoline is generated for each far function
which is called using a "jsr" instruction (this happens
when a pointer to a far function is taken).
--bank-window name
This option indicates to the linker the name of the
memory region in the MEMORY specification that describes
the memory bank window. The definition of such region
is then used by the linker to compute paging and
addresses within the memory window.
The following options are supported to control handling of
GOT generation when linking for 68K targets.
--got=type
This option tells the linker which GOT generation scheme
to use. type should be one of single, negative,
multigot or target. For more information refer to the
Info entry for ld.
The following options are supported to control microMIPS
instruction generation and branch relocation checks for ISA
mode transitions when linking for MIPS targets.
--insn32
--no-insn32
These options control the choice of microMIPS
instructions used in code generated by the linker, such
as that in the PLT or lazy binding stubs, or in
relaxation. If --insn32 is used, then the linker only
uses 32-bit instruction encodings. By default or if
--no-insn32 is used, all instruction encodings are used,
including 16-bit ones where possible.
--ignore-branch-isa
--no-ignore-branch-isa
These options control branch relocation checks for
invalid ISA mode transitions. If --ignore-branch-isa is
used, then the linker accepts any branch relocations and
any ISA mode transition required is lost in relocation
calculation, except for some cases of "BAL" instructions
which meet relaxation conditions and are converted to
equivalent "JALX" instructions as the associated
relocation is calculated. By default or if
--no-ignore-branch-isa is used a check is made causing
the loss of an ISA mode transition to produce an error.
ENVIRONMENT
You can change the behaviour of ld with the environment
variables "GNUTARGET", "LDEMULATION" and
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"COLLECT_NO_DEMANGLE".
"GNUTARGET" determines the input-file object format if you
don't use -b (or its synonym --format). Its value should be
one of the BFD names for an input format. If there is no
"GNUTARGET" in the environment, ld uses the natural format
of the target. If "GNUTARGET" is set to "default" then BFD
attempts to discover the input format by examining binary
input files; this method often succeeds, but there are
potential ambiguities, since there is no method of ensuring
that the magic number used to specify object-file formats is
unique. However, the configuration procedure for BFD on
each system places the conventional format for that system
first in the search-list, so ambiguities are resolved in
favor of convention.
"LDEMULATION" determines the default emulation if you don't
use the -m option. The emulation can affect various aspects
of linker behaviour, particularly the default linker script.
You can list the available emulations with the --verbose or
-V options. If the -m option is not used, and the
"LDEMULATION" environment variable is not defined, the
default emulation depends upon how the linker was
configured.
Normally, the linker will default to demangling symbols.
However, if "COLLECT_NO_DEMANGLE" is set in the environment,
then it will default to not demangling symbols. This
environment variable is used in a similar fashion by the
"gcc" linker wrapper program. The default may be overridden
by the --demangle and --no-demangle options.
SEE ALSO
ar(1), nm(1), objcopy(1), objdump(1), readelf(1) and the
Info entries for binutils and ld.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1991-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the
Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with
no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy
of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free
Documentation License".
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