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GNU Linker
User’s Guide

Version 2.23.2

Steve Chamberlain and Ian lance Taylor

With modifications from Cadence® for Xtensa Processors

Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

2655 Seely Ave.
San Jose, CA 95134
www.cadence.com
Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,
2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Copyright © 2018 Cadence Design Systems, 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
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Copyright © 2018 Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
All rights reserved worldwide.

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kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular
purpose. Information in this document is provided solely to enable system and software developers to use our processors.
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Issue Date: 10/2018

RI-2018.0

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Inc. 2655 Seely Avenue
San Jose, CA 95134
www.cadence.com
Contents

Changes from Previous Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1. Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Invocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Environment Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3. Linker Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1 Basic Linker Script Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2 Linker Script Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.3 Simple Linker Script Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.4 Simple Linker Script Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.4.1 Setting the Entry Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.4.2 Commands Dealing with Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4.3 Assign alias names to memory regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.4.4 Other Linker Script Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.5 Assigning Values to Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.5.1 Simple Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.5.2 HIDDEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.5.3 PROVIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5.4 PROVIDE HIDDEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5.5 Source Code Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.6 SECTIONS Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.6.1 Output Section Description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.6.2 Output Section Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.6.3 Output Section Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.6.4 Input Section Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.6.4.1 Input Section Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.6.4.2 Input Section Wildcard Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.6.4.3 Input Section for Common Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.6.4.4 Input Section and Garbage Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.6.4.5 Input Section Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.6.5 Output Section Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.6.6 Output Section Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.6.7 Output Section Discarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.6.8 Output Section Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6.8.1 Output Section Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6.8.2 Output Section LMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.6.8.3 Forced Output Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6.8.4 Forced Input Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6.8.5 Output Section Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6.8.6 Output Section Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6.8.7 Output Section Phdr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6.8.8 Output Section Fill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.6.9 Overlay Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.7 MEMORY Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

GNU Linker User’s Guide i

 3.8 PHDRS Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.9 VERSION Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.10 Expressions in Linker Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.10.1 Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.10.2 Symbolic Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.10.3 Symbol Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.10.4 Orphan Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.10.5 The Location Counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.10.6 Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.10.7 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.10.8 The Section of an Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.10.9 Builtin Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.11 Implicit Linker Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4. ld and Xtensa Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
A. GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
B. History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

ii GNU Linker User’s Guide

Changes from Previous Versions

The following changes were made to this document for the Xtensa Tools version 9.0 released
in the Tensilica RD-2010.0 release:

Upgraded from version 2.18 to version 2.20 of the GNU Binary Utilities.
Handle C++ debugging sections better.
Coalesce literals in more cases. Support for -gc-sections

GNU Linker User’s Guide 1

2 GNU Linker User’s Guide
 Chapter 1: Overview

1. Overview

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.

Aside from its flexibility, the GNU linker is more helpful than other linkers in providing di-
agnostic 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).

GNU Linker User’s Guide 3

Chapter 1: Overview

4 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Chapter 2: Invocation

2. Invocation

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.

2.1 Command Line 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.)

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. See Chapter 3 [Scripts], page 31.

GNU Linker User’s Guide 5

Chapter 2: Invocation

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.

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 func-
tionally equivalent to ‘-Bstatic’, and the other two keywords are functionally
equivalent to ‘-Bdynamic’. This option may be used any number of times.

6 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Chapter 2: Invocation

--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.
-d
-dc
-dp These three options are equivalent; multiple forms are supported for com-
patibility 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. See Section 3.4.4 [Mis-
cellaneous Commands], page 38.
--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 plat-
forms 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). See Section 3.4.1 [Entry Point], page 33, for a discussion of
defaults and other ways of specifying the entry point.
--exclude-libs lib,lib,...
Specifies a list of archive libraries from which symbols should not be automat-
ically 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.
--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

GNU Linker User’s Guide 7

Chapter 2: Invocation

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 dy-
namic 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.

-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.

8 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Chapter 2: Invocation

-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 will ignore the ‘-F’ option when not creating an ELF shared object.
-fini=name
When creating an ELF executable or shared object, call NAME when the exe-
cutable 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 ECOFF which
supports 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 ex-
ecutable 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

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‘: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.
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.

-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 =, then the = will be replaced by the sysroot prefix, a
path 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. See Section 2.2 [Environment], page 29.
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 defined.
Otherwise, the default emulation depends upon how the linker was configured.

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-M
--print-map
Print a link map to the standard output. A link map provides information about
the link, including the following:
Where object files are mapped into memory.
How common symbols are allocated.
All archive members included in the link, with a mention of the symbol
which caused the archive member to be brought in.
The values assigned to symbols.
Note - symbols whose values are computed by an expression which in-
volves 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. Un-
der 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 Section 3.10 [Expressions], page 65 for more information about ex-
pressions in linker scripts.
--multilib-dir dir
Search directory dir for default libraries and load scripts. If the specified direc-
tory does not contain a subdirectory named ‘ldscripts’, this option is ignored.
If dir is not a complete path, it is appended to the path for the system’s default
library directory. For Xtensa processors, this option is typically used to spec-
ify a linker support package (LSP). Please refer to the Xtensa Linker Support
Packages (LSPs) Reference Manual for more information about LSPs.
-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
--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.

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--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.
-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 envi-
ronments 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 abso-
lute 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 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

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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.
-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. See Chapter 3 [Scripts], page 31. 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. See Chapter 3 [Scripts], page 31.
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 com-
mand 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. Do-
ing this may, for example, trigger linking of additional modules from standard
libraries. ‘-u’ may be repeated with different option arguments to enter addi-
tional undefined symbols. This option is equivalent to the EXTERN linker script
command.
-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.

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--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.
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:
‘combreloc’
Combines multiple reloc sections and sorts them to make dynamic
symbol lookup caching possible.
‘defs’ Disallows undefined symbols in object files. Undefined symbols in
shared libraries are still allowed.
‘execstack’
Marks the object as requiring executable stack.
‘initfirst’
This option is only meaningful when building a shared object. It
marks the object so that its runtime initialization will occur before

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the runtime initialization of any other objects brought into the pro-
cess at the same time. Similarly the runtime finalization of the
object will occur after the runtime finalization of any other objects.
‘interpose’
Marks the object that its symbol table interposes before all symbols
but the primary executable.
‘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’
Marks the object that its filters be processed immediately at run-
time.
‘muldefs’ Allows multiple definitions.
‘nocombreloc’
Disables multiple reloc sections combining.
‘nocopyreloc’
Disables production of copy relocs.
‘nodefaultlib’
Marks the object that the search for dependencies of this object
will ignore any default library search paths.
‘nodelete’
Marks the object shouldn’t be unloaded at runtime.
‘nodlopen’
Marks the object not available to dlopen.
‘nodump’ Marks the object can not be dumped by dldump.
‘noexecstack’
Marks the object as not requiring executable stack.
‘norelro’ Don’t create an ELF PT_GNU_RELRO segment header in the ob-
ject.
‘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 linked to using dlopen, instead of
deferring function call resolution to the point when the function is
first called.
‘origin’ Marks the object may contain $ORIGIN.
‘relro’ Create an ELF PT_GNU_RELRO segment header in the object.

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‘max-page-size=value’
Set the emulation maximum page size to value.
‘common-page-size=value’
Set the emulation common page size to value.
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 refer-
ences 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 ap-
pears 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 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 satisfies an
undefined symbol reference from a regular object file or, if the library is not
found in the DT NEEDED lists of other libraries linked up to that point, an
undefined symbol reference from another dynamic library. ‘--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’.

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-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
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 defini-
tion 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 is only meaningful on ELF platforms which support shared libraries.
-Bsymbolic-functions
When creating a shared library, bind references to global function symbols to
the definition within the shared library, if any. This option is only meaningful on
ELF platforms which support shared libraries.
--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 dy-
namically 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.

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The format of the dynamic list is the same as the version node without scope
and node name. See Section 3.9 [VERSION], page 62 for more information.
--dynamic-list-data
Include all global data symbols to the dynamic list.
--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 as-
signed 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 over-
lays. 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 li-
braries. 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.
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. The remaining files contain references to
the symbol.

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--no-define-common
This option inhibits the assignment of addresses to common symbols. The
script command INHIBIT_COMMON_ALLOCATION has the same effect. See
Section 3.4.4 [Miscellaneous Commands], page 38.
The ‘--no-define-common’ option allows decoupling the decision to assign
addresses to Common symbols from the choice of the output file type; other-
wise 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 dupli-
cate when there are many dynamic modules with specialized search paths for
runtime symbol resolution.
--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 (see Section 3.5 [Assignment:
Symbol Definitions], page 39). Note: there should be no white space between
symbol, the equals sign (“h=i”), and expression.
--demangle[=style]
--no-demangle
These options control whether to demangle symbol names 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.
--fatal-warnings
--no-fatal-warnings
Treat all warnings as errors. The default behaviour can be restored with the
option ‘--no-fatal-warnings’.

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--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 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.
‘--gc-sections’ decides which input sections are used by examining sym-
bols 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.
--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 script command (see Section 3.4.2 [File Commands],
page 34).
--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.

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--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 un-
resolved references found in shared libraries being linked in.
--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
used.
--allow-shlib-undefined
--no-allow-shlib-undefined
Allows or disallows undefined symbols in shared libraries. This switch is sim-
ilar 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 spec-
ified at link time are that:
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.
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.

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--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 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.
-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. See Chapter 4 [ld and Xtensa
Processors], page 77.
On some platforms the ‘--relax’ option performs target specific, global op-
timizations that become possible when the linker resolves addressing in the

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program, such as relaxing address modes, synthesizing new instructions, se-

lecting shorter version of current instructions, and combinig constant values.
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. file-
name is simply a flat file, with one symbol name per line. This option is espe-
cially useful in environments 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.
You may only specify ‘--retain-symbols-file’ once in the command line.
It overrides ‘-s’ and ‘-S’.
-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 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.
--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 relo-
cations in a single section. Note that this will fail to work with object file formats

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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 exe-
cution time and memory usage.
--sysroot=directory
Use directory as the location of the sysroot, overriding the configure-time de-
fault. This option is only supported by linkers that were configured using
‘--with-sysroot’.
--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 (“h=i”), and org.
-Tbss=org
-Tdata=org
-Ttext=org
Same as ‘--section-start’, with .bss, .data or .text as the section-
name.
-Ttext-segment=org
When creating an ELF executable or shared object, 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.
--unresolved-symbols=method
Determine how to handle unresolved symbols. There are four possible values
for ‘method’:

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‘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 Section 3.9 [VERSION],
page 62. It is partially supported on PE platforms, which can use version scripts
to filter symbol visibility in auto-export mode: any 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 practise, 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 practise, 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:

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‘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 sym-
bols 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 warn-
ing 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 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.

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--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
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 (see Section 3.6 [SECTIONS], page 43).
--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 re-
porting 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.

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--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 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
Request 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 dynamic tags will be created as needed. 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 num-
ber. Increasing this value can reduce the length of time it takes the linker to
perform its tasks, at the expense of increasing the linker’s memory require-
ments. Similarly reducing this value can reduce the memory requirements at
the expense of speed.

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--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.

--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(nˆ2) 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 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 creation of .note.gnu.build-id ELF note 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.

2.2 Environment Variables

You can change the behaviour of ld with the environment variables LDEMULATION and
COLLECT_NO_DEMANGLE.

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.

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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.

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3. Linker Scripts

Every link is controlled by a linker script. This script is written in the linker command
language.

The main purpose of the linker script is to describe how the sections in the input files should
be mapped into the output file, and to control the memory layout of the output file. Most
linker scripts do nothing more than this. However, when necessary, the linker script can
also direct the linker to perform many other operations, using the commands described
below.

The linker always uses a linker script. If you do not supply one yourself, the linker will use
a default script that is compiled into the linker executable. You can use the ‘--verbose’
command line option to display the default linker script. Certain command line options,
such as ‘-r’ or ‘-N’, will affect the default linker script.

You may supply your own linker script by using the ‘-T’ command line option. When you do
this, your linker script will replace the default linker script.

You may also use linker scripts implicitly by naming them as input files to the linker, as
though they were files to be linked. See Section 3.11 [Implicit Linker Scripts], page 75.

3.1 Basic Linker Script Concepts

We need to define some basic concepts and vocabulary in order to describe the linker script
language.

The linker combines input files into a single output file. The output file and each input file
are in a special data format known as an object file format. Each file is called an object
file. The output file is often called an executable, but for our purposes we will also call it an
object file. Each object file has, among other things, a list of sections. We sometimes refer
to a section in an input file as an input section; similarly, a section in the output file is an
output section.

Each section in an object file has a name and a size. Most sections also have an associated
block of data, known as the section contents. A section may be marked as loadable, which
mean that the contents should be loaded into memory when the output file is run. A section
with no contents may be allocatable, which means that an area in memory should be set
aside, but nothing in particular should be loaded there (in some cases this memory must
be zeroed out). A section which is neither loadable nor allocatable typically contains some
sort of debugging information.

Every loadable or allocatable output section has two addresses. The first is the VMA, or
virtual memory address. This is the address the section will have when the output file is run.

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The second is the LMA, or load memory address. This is the address at which the section
will be loaded. In most cases the two addresses will be the same. An example of when
they might be different is when a data section is loaded into ROM, and then copied into
RAM when the program starts up (this technique is often used to initialize global variables
in a ROM based system). In this case the ROM address would be the LMA, and the RAM
address would be the VMA.

You can see the sections in an object file by using the objdump program with the ‘-h’
option.

Every object file also has a list of symbols, known as the symbol table. A symbol may be
defined or undefined. Each symbol has a name, and each defined symbol has an address,
among other information. If you compile a C or C++ program into an object file, you will get
a defined symbol for every defined function and global or static variable. Every undefined
function or global variable which is referenced in the input file will become an undefined
symbol.

You can see the symbols in an object file by using the nm program, or by using the objdump
program with the ‘-t’ option.

3.2 Linker Script Format

Linker scripts are text files.

You write a linker script as a series of commands. Each command is either a keyword, pos-
sibly followed by arguments, or an assignment to a symbol. You may separate commands
using semicolons. Whitespace is generally ignored.

Strings such as file or format names can normally be entered directly. If the file name
contains a character such as a comma which would otherwise serve to separate file names,
you may put the file name in double quotes. There is no way to use a double quote character
in a file name.

You may include comments in linker scripts just as in C, delimited by ‘/*’ and ‘*/’. As in C,
comments are syntactically equivalent to whitespace.

3.3 Simple Linker Script Example

Many linker scripts are fairly simple.

The simplest possible linker script has just one command: ‘SECTIONS’. You use the
‘SECTIONS’ command to describe the memory layout of the output file.

The ‘SECTIONS’ command is a powerful command. Here we will describe a simple use
of it. Let’s assume your program consists only of code, initialized data, and uninitialized
data. These will be in the ‘.text’, ‘.data’, and ‘.bss’ sections, respectively. Let’s assume
further that these are the only sections which appear in your input files.

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For this example, let’s say that the code should be loaded at address 0x10000, and that the
data should start at address 0x8000000. Here is a linker script which will do that:

SECTIONS
{
. = 0x10000;
.text : { *(.text) }
. = 0x8000000;
.data : { *(.data) }
.bss : { *(.bss) }
}

You write the ‘SECTIONS’ command as the keyword ‘SECTIONS’, followed by a series of
symbol assignments and output section descriptions enclosed in curly braces.

The first line inside the ‘SECTIONS’ command of the above example sets the value of the
special symbol ‘.’, which is the location counter. If you do not specify the address of an
output section in some other way (other ways are described later), the address is set from
the current value of the location counter. The location counter is then incremented by the
size of the output section. At the start of the ‘SECTIONS’ command, the location counter
has the value ‘0’.

The second line defines an output section, ‘.text’. The colon is required syntax which
may be ignored for now. Within the curly braces after the output section name, you list
the names of the input sections which should be placed into this output section. The ‘*’ is
a wildcard which matches any file name. The expression ‘*(.text)’ means all ‘.text’
input sections in all input files.

Since the location counter is ‘0x10000’ when the output section ‘.text’ is defined, the
linker will set the address of the ‘.text’ section in the output file to be ‘0x10000’.

The remaining lines define the ‘.data’ and ‘.bss’ sections in the output file. The linker
will place the ‘.data’ output section at address ‘0x8000000’. After the linker places the
‘.data’ output section, the value of the location counter will be ‘0x8000000’ plus the size
of the ‘.data’ output section. The effect is that the linker will place the ‘.bss’ output section
immediately after the ‘.data’ output section in memory.

The linker will ensure that each output section has the required alignment, by increasing the
location counter if necessary. In this example, the specified addresses for the ‘.text’ and
‘.data’ sections will probably satisfy any alignment constraints, but the linker may have to
create a small gap between the ‘.data’ and ‘.bss’ sections.

That’s it! That’s a simple and complete linker script.

3.4 Simple Linker Script Commands

In this section we describe the simple linker script commands.

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3.4.1 Setting the Entry Point

The first instruction to execute in a program is called the entry point. You can use the ENTRY
linker script command to set the entry point. The argument is a symbol name:
ENTRY(symbol)

There are several ways to set the entry point. The linker will set the entry point by trying
each of the following methods in order, and stopping when one of them succeeds:

the ‘-e’ entry command-line option;

the ENTRY(symbol) command in a linker script;
the value of a target specific symbol, if it is defined; For many targets this is start,
but PE and BeOS based systems for example check a list of possible entry symbols,
matching the first one found.
the address of the first byte of the ‘.text’ section, if present;
The address 0.

3.4.2 Commands Dealing with Files

Several linker script commands deal with files.

INCLUDE filename
Include the linker script filename at this point. The file will be searched for in
the current directory, and in any directory specified with the ‘-L’ option. You
can nest calls to INCLUDE up to 10 levels deep.
You can place INCLUDE directives at the top level, in MEMORY or SECTIONS
commands, or in output section descriptions.
INPUT(file, file, ...)
INPUT(file file ...)
The INPUT command directs the linker to include the named files in the link,
as though they were named on the command line.
For example, if you always want to include ‘subr.o’ any time you do a link, but
you can’t be bothered to put it on every link command line, then you can put
‘INPUT (subr.o)’ in your linker script.
In fact, if you like, you can list all of your input files in the linker script, and then
invoke the linker with nothing but a ‘-T’ option.
In case a sysroot prefix is configured, and the filename starts with the ‘/’
character, and the script being processed was located inside the sysroot prefix,
the filename will be looked for in the sysroot prefix. Otherwise, the linker will
try to open the file in the current directory. If it is not found, the linker will
search through the archive library search path. See the description of ‘-L’ in
Section 2.1 [Command Line Options], page 5.
If you use ‘INPUT (-lfile)’, ld will transform the name to libfile.a, as
with the command line argument ‘-l’.

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When you use the INPUT command in an implicit linker script, the files will be
included in the link at the point at which the linker script file is included. This
can affect archive searching.
GROUP(file, file, ...)
GROUP(file file ...)
The GROUP command is like INPUT, except that the named files should all be
archives, and they are searched repeatedly until no new undefined references
are created. See the description of ‘-(’ in Section 2.1 [Command Line Options],
page 5.
AS_NEEDED(file, file, ...)
AS_NEEDED(file file ...)
This construct can appear only inside of the INPUT or GROUP commands,
among other filenames. The files listed will be handled as if they appear di-
rectly in the INPUT or GROUP commands, with the exception of ELF shared
libraries, that will be added only when they are actually needed. This con-
struct essentially enables ‘--as-needed’ option for all the files listed inside
of it and restores previous ‘--as-needed’ resp. ‘--no-as-needed’ setting
afterwards.
OUTPUT(filename)
The OUTPUT command names the output file. Using OUTPUT(filename) in
the linker script is exactly like using ‘-o filename’ on the command line (see
Section 2.1 [Command Line Options], page 5). If both are used, the command
line option takes precedence.
You can use the OUTPUT command to define a default name for the output file
other than the usual default of ‘a.out’.
SEARCH_DIR(path)
The SEARCH_DIR command adds path to the list of paths where ld looks for
archive libraries. Using SEARCH_DIR(path) is exactly like using ‘-L path’
on the command line (see Section 2.1 [Command Line Options], page 5). If
both are used, then the linker will search both paths. Paths specified using the
command line option are searched first.
STARTUP(filename)
The STARTUP command is just like the INPUT command, except that filename
will become the first input file to be linked, as though it were specified first on
the command line. This may be useful when using a system in which the entry
point is always the start of the first file.

3.4.3 Assign alias names to memory regions

Alias names can be added to existing memory regions created with the Section 3.7 [MEM-
ORY], page 58 command. Each name corresponds to at most one memory region.

REGION_ALIAS(alias, region)

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The REGION_ALIAS function creates an alias name alias for the memory region region.
This allows a flexible mapping of output sections to memory regions. An example follows.

Suppose we have an application for embedded systems which come with various memory
storage devices. All have a general purpose, volatile memory RAM that allows code exe-
cution or data storage. Some may have a read-only, non-volatile memory ROM that allows
code execution and read-only data access. The last variant is a read-only, non-volatile
memory ROM2 with read-only data access and no code execution capability. We have four
output sections:

.text program code;

.rodata read-only data;
.data read-write initialized data;
.bss read-write zero initialized data.

The goal is to provide a linker command file that contains a system independent part
defining the output sections and a system dependent part mapping the output sections to
the memory regions available on the system. Our embedded systems come with three
different memory setups A, B and C:

Section Variant A Variant B Variant C

.text RAM ROM ROM
.rodata RAM ROM ROM2
.data RAM RAM/ROM RAM/ROM2
.bss RAM RAM RAM

The notation RAM/ROM or RAM/ROM2 means that this section is loaded into region ROM or
ROM2 respectively. Please note that the load address of the .data section starts in all
three variants at the end of the .rodata section.

The base linker script that deals with the output sections follows. It includes the system
dependent linkcmds.memory file that describes the memory layout:

INCLUDE linkcmds.memory

SECTIONS
{
.text :
{
*(.text)
} > REGION_TEXT
.rodata :
{
*(.rodata)
rodata_end = .;
} > REGION_RODATA
.data : AT (rodata_end)
{
data_start = .;

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*(.data)
} > REGION_DATA
data_size = SIZEOF(.data);
data_load_start = LOADADDR(.data);
.bss :
{
*(.bss)
} > REGION_BSS
}

Now we need three different linkcmds.memory files to define memory regions and alias
names. The content of linkcmds.memory for the three variants A, B and C:

A Here everything goes into the RAM.

MEMORY
{
RAM : ORIGIN = 0, LENGTH = 4M
}

REGION_ALIAS("REGION_TEXT", RAM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_RODATA", RAM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_DATA", RAM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_BSS", RAM);

B Program code and read-only data go into the ROM. Read-write data goes into
the RAM. An image of the initialized data is loaded into the ROM and will be
copied during system start into the RAM.
MEMORY
{
ROM : ORIGIN = 0, LENGTH = 3M
RAM : ORIGIN = 0x10000000, LENGTH = 1M
}

REGION_ALIAS("REGION_TEXT", ROM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_RODATA", ROM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_DATA", RAM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_BSS", RAM);

C Program code goes into the ROM. Read-only data goes into the ROM2. Read-
write data goes into the RAM. An image of the initialized data is loaded into the
ROM2 and will be copied during system start into the RAM.
MEMORY
{
ROM : ORIGIN = 0, LENGTH = 2M
ROM2 : ORIGIN = 0x10000000, LENGTH = 1M
RAM : ORIGIN = 0x20000000, LENGTH = 1M
}

REGION_ALIAS("REGION_TEXT", ROM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_RODATA", ROM2);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_DATA", RAM);
REGION_ALIAS("REGION_BSS", RAM);

It is possible to write a common system initialization routine to copy the .data section from
ROM or ROM2 into the RAM if necessary:

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Chapter 3: Linker Scripts

#include <string.h>

extern char data_start [];

extern char data_size [];
extern char data_load_start [];

void copy_data(void)
{
if (data_start != data_load_start)
{
memcpy(data_start, data_load_start, (size_t) data_size);
}
}

3.4.4 Other Linker Script Commands

There are a few other linker scripts commands.

ASSERT(exp, message)
Ensure that exp is non-zero. If it is zero, then exit the linker with an error code,
and print message.
EXTERN(symbol 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.
You may list several symbols for each EXTERN, and you may use EXTERN
multiple times. This command has the same effect as the ‘-u’ command-line
option.
FORCE_COMMON_ALLOCATION
This command has the same effect as the ‘-d’ command-line option: to make
ld assign space to common symbols even if a relocatable output file is specified
(‘-r’).
INHIBIT_COMMON_ALLOCATION
This command has the same effect as the ‘--no-define-common’ command-
line option: to make ld omit the assignment of addresses to common symbols
even for a non-relocatable output file.
INSERT [ AFTER | BEFORE ] output_section
This command is typically used in a script specified by ‘-T’ to augment the
default SECTIONS with, for example, overlays. It inserts all prior linker script
statements after (or before) output section, and also causes ‘-T’ to not override
the default linker script. The exact insertion point is as for orphan sections. See
Section 3.10.5 [Location Counter], page 67. The insertion happens after the
linker has mapped input sections to output sections. Prior to the insertion,
since ‘-T’ scripts are parsed before the default linker script, statements in the
‘-T’ script occur before the default linker script statements in the internal linker
representation of the script. In particular, input section assignments will be
made to ‘-T’ output sections before those in the default script. Here is an
example of how a ‘-T’ script using INSERT might look:

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SECTIONS
{
OVERLAY :
{
.ov1 { ov1*(.text) }
.ov2 { ov2*(.text) }
}
}
INSERT AFTER .text;

NOCROSSREFS(section section ...)

This command may be used to tell ld to issue an error about any references
among certain output sections.
In certain types of programs, particularly on embedded systems when using
overlays, when one section is loaded into memory, another section will not be.
Any direct references between the two sections would be errors. For example,
it would be an error if code in one section called a function defined in the other
section.
The NOCROSSREFS command takes a list of output section names. If ld
detects any cross references between the sections, it reports an error and
returns a non-zero exit status. Note that the NOCROSSREFS command uses
output section names, not input section names.
LD_FEATURE(string)
This command may be used to modify ld behavior. If string is "SANE_EXPR"
then absolute symbols and numbers in a script are simply treated as numbers
everywhere. See Section 3.10.8 [Expression Section], page 70.

3.5 Assigning Values to Symbols

You may assign a value to a symbol in a linker script. This will define the symbol and place
it into the symbol table with a global scope.

3.5.1 Simple Assignments

You may assign to a symbol using any of the C assignment operators:

symbol = expression ;
symbol += expression ;
symbol -= expression ;
symbol *= expression ;
symbol /= expression ;
symbol <<= expression ;
symbol >>= expression ;
symbol &= expression ;
symbol |= expression ;

The first case will define symbol to the value of expression. In the other cases, symbol
must already be defined, and the value will be adjusted accordingly.

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The special symbol name ‘.’ indicates the location counter. You may only use this within a
SECTIONS command. See Section 3.10.5 [Location Counter], page 67.

The semicolon after expression is required.

Expressions are defined below; see Section 3.10 [Expressions], page 65.

You may write symbol assignments as commands in their own right, or as statements
within a SECTIONS command, or as part of an output section description in a SECTIONS
command.

The section of the symbol will be set from the section of the expression; for more information,
see Section 3.10.8 [Expression Section], page 70.

Here is an example showing the three different places that symbol assignments may be
used:
floating_point = 0;
SECTIONS
{
.text :
{
*(.text)
_etext = .;
}
_bdata = (. + 3) & ˜ 3;
.data : { *(.data) }
}

In this example, the symbol ‘floating_point’ will be defined as zero. The symbol
‘_etext’ will be defined as the address following the last ‘.text’ input section. The symbol
‘_bdata’ will be defined as the address following the ‘.text’ output section aligned upward
to a 4 byte boundary.

3.5.2 HIDDEN
For ELF targeted ports, define a symbol that will be hidden and won’t be exported. The
syntax is HIDDEN(symbol = expression).

Here is the example from Section 3.5.1 [Simple Assignments], page 39, rewritten to use
HIDDEN:
HIDDEN(floating_point = 0);
SECTIONS
{
.text :
{
*(.text)
HIDDEN(_etext = .);
}
HIDDEN(_bdata = (. + 3) & ˜ 3);
.data : { *(.data) }

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In this case none of the three symbols will be visible outside this module.

3.5.3 PROVIDE
In some cases, it is desirable for a linker script to define a symbol only if it is referenced
and is not defined by any object included in the link. For example, traditional linkers defined
the symbol ‘etext’. However, ANSI C requires that the user be able to use ‘etext’ as
a function name without encountering an error. The PROVIDE keyword may be used to
define a symbol, such as ‘etext’, only if it is referenced but not defined. The syntax is
PROVIDE(symbol = expression).
Here is an example of using PROVIDE to define ‘etext’:
SECTIONS
{
.text :
{
*(.text)
_etext = .;
PROVIDE(etext = .);
}
}

In this example, if the program defines ‘_etext’ (with a leading underscore), the linker will
give a multiple definition error. If, on the other hand, the program defines ‘etext’ (with no
leading underscore), the linker will silently use the definition in the program. If the program
references ‘etext’ but does not define it, the linker will use the definition in the linker script.

3.5.4 PROVIDE HIDDEN

Similar to PROVIDE. For ELF targeted ports, the symbol will be hidden and won’t be
exported.

3.5.5 Source Code Reference

Accessing a linker script defined variable from source code is not intuitive. In particular a
linker script symbol is not equivalent to a variable declaration in a high level language, it is
instead a symbol that does not have a value.

Before going further, it is important to note that compilers often transform names in the
source code into different names when they are stored in the symbol table. For example,
Fortran compilers commonly prepend or append an underscore, and C++ performs exten-
sive ‘name mangling’. Therefore there might be a discrepancy between the name of a
variable as it is used in source code and the name of the same variable as it is defined in a
linker script. For example in C a linker script variable might be referred to as:
extern int foo;

But in the linker script it might be defined as:

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_foo = 1000;

In the remaining examples however it is assumed that no name transformation has taken
place.

When a symbol is declared in a high level language such as C, two things happen. The
first is that the compiler reserves enough space in the program’s memory to hold the value
of the symbol. The second is that the compiler creates an entry in the program’s symbol
table which holds the symbol’s address. ie the symbol table contains the address of the
block of memory holding the symbol’s value. So for example the following C declaration, at
file scope:

int foo = 1000;

creates a entry called ‘foo’ in the symbol table. This entry holds the address of an ‘int’
sized block of memory where the number 1000 is initially stored.

When a program references a symbol the compiler generates code that first accesses the
symbol table to find the address of the symbol’s memory block and then code to read the
value from that memory block. So:

foo = 1;

looks up the symbol ‘foo’ in the symbol table, gets the address associated with this symbol
and then writes the value 1 into that address. Whereas:

int * a = & foo;

looks up the symbol ‘foo’ in the symbol table, gets it address and then copies this address
into the block of memory associated with the variable ‘a’.

Linker scripts symbol declarations, by contrast, create an entry in the symbol table but do
not assign any memory to them. Thus they are an address without a value. So for example
the linker script definition:

foo = 1000;

creates an entry in the symbol table called ‘foo’ which holds the address of memory location
1000, but nothing special is stored at address 1000. This means that you cannot access
the value of a linker script defined symbol - it has no value - all you can do is access the
address of a linker script defined symbol.

Hence when you are using a linker script defined symbol in source code you should always
take the address of the symbol, and never attempt to use its value. For example suppose
you want to copy the contents of a section of memory called .ROM into a section called
.FLASH and the linker script contains these declarations:

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start_of_ROM = .ROM;
end_of_ROM = .ROM + sizeof (.ROM) - 1;
start_of_FLASH = .FLASH;

Then the C source code to perform the copy would be:

extern char start_of_ROM, end_of_ROM, start_of_FLASH;

memcpy (& start_of_FLASH, & start_of_ROM, & end_of_ROM - & start_of_ROM);

Note the use of the ‘&’ operators. These are correct.

3.6 SECTIONS Command

The SECTIONS command tells the linker how to map input sections into output sections,
and how to place the output sections in memory.

The format of the SECTIONS command is:

SECTIONS
{
sections-command
sections-command
...
}

Each sections-command may of be one of the following:

an ENTRY command (see Section 3.4.1 [Entry command], page 33)

a symbol assignment (see Section 3.5 [Assignments], page 39)
an output section description
an overlay description

The ENTRY command and symbol assignments are permitted inside the SECTIONS com-
mand for convenience in using the location counter in those commands. This can also make
the linker script easier to understand because you can use those commands at meaningful
points in the layout of the output file.

Output section descriptions and overlay descriptions are described below.

If you do not use a SECTIONS command in your linker script, the linker will place each
input section into an identically named output section in the order that the sections are first
encountered in the input files. If all input sections are present in the first file, for example,
the order of sections in the output file will match the order in the first input file. The first
section will be at address zero.

3.6.1 Output Section Description

The full description of an output section looks like this:

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section [address] [(type)] :

[AT(lma)]
[ALIGN(section_align)]
[SUBALIGN(subsection_align)]
[constraint]
{
output-section-command
output-section-command
...
} [>region] [AT>lma_region] [:phdr :phdr ...] [=fillexp]

Most output sections do not use most of the optional section attributes.

The whitespace around section is required, so that the section name is unambiguous. The
colon and the curly braces are also required. The line breaks and other white space are
optional.

Each output-section-command may be one of the following:

a symbol assignment (see Section 3.5 [Assignments], page 39)

an input section description (see Section 3.6.4 [Input Section], page 45)
data values to include directly (see Section 3.6.5 [Output Section Data], page 50)
a special output section keyword (see Section 3.6.6 [Output Section Keywords],
page 51)

3.6.2 Output Section Name

The name of the output section is section. section must meet the constraints of your output
format. In formats which only support a limited number of sections, such as a.out, the
name must be one of the names supported by the format (a.out, for example, allows only
‘.text’, ‘.data’ or ‘.bss’). If the output format supports any number of sections, but with
numbers and not names (as is the case for Oasys), the name should be supplied as a
quoted numeric string. A section name may consist of any sequence of characters, but a
name which contains any unusual characters such as commas must be quoted.

The output section name ‘/DISCARD/’ is special; Section 3.6.7 [Output Section Discarding],
page 52.

3.6.3 Output Section Address

The address is an expression for the VMA (the virtual memory address) of the output
section. This address is optional, but if it is provided then the output address will be set
exactly as specified.

If the output address is not specified then one will be chosen for the section, based on the
heuristic below. This address will be adjusted to fit the alignment requirement of the output
section. The alignment requirement is the strictest alignment of any input section contained
within the output section.

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The output section address heuristic is as follows:

If an output memory region is set for the section then it is added to this region and its
address will be the next free address in that region.
If the MEMORY command has been used to create a list of memory regions then the
first region which has attributes compatible with the section is selected to contain it.
The section’s output address will be the next free address in that region; Section 3.7
[MEMORY], page 58.
If no memory regions were specified, or none match the section then the output address
will be based on the current value of the location counter.

For example:

.text . : { *(.text) }

and

.text : { *(.text) }

are subtly different. The first will set the address of the ‘.text’ output section to the current
value of the location counter. The second will set it to the current value of the location
counter aligned to the strictest alignment of any of the ‘.text’ input sections.

The address may be an arbitrary expression; Section 3.10 [Expressions], page 65. For
example, if you want to align the section on a 0x10 byte boundary, so that the lowest four
bits of the section address are zero, you could do something like this:

.text ALIGN(0x10) : { *(.text) }

This works because ALIGN returns the current location counter aligned upward to the
specified value.

Specifying address for a section will change the value of the location counter, provided that
the section is non-empty. (Empty sections are ignored).

3.6.4 Input Section Description

The most common output section command is an input section description.

The input section description is the most basic linker script operation. You use output
sections to tell the linker how to lay out your program in memory. You use input section
descriptions to tell the linker how to map the input files into your memory layout.

3.6.4.1 Input Section Basics

An input section description consists of a file name optionally followed by a list of section
names in parentheses.

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The file name and the section name may be wildcard patterns, which we describe further
below (see Section 3.6.4.2 [Input Section Wildcards], page 47).

The most common input section description is to include all input sections with a particular
name in the output section. For example, to include all input ‘.text’ sections, you would
write:

*(.text)

Here the ‘*’ is a wildcard which matches any file name. To exclude a list of files from
matching the file name wildcard, EXCLUDE FILE may be used to match all files except the
ones specified in the EXCLUDE FILE list. For example:

*(EXCLUDE_FILE (*crtend.o *otherfile.o) .ctors)

will cause all .ctors sections from all files except ‘crtend.o’ and ‘otherfile.o’ to be
included.

There are two ways to include more than one section:

*(.text .rdata)
*(.text) *(.rdata)

The difference between these is the order in which the ‘.text’ and ‘.rdata’ input sections
will appear in the output section. In the first example, they will be intermingled, appearing
in the same order as they are found in the linker input. In the second example, all ‘.text’
input sections will appear first, followed by all ‘.rdata’ input sections.

You can specify a file name to include sections from a particular file. You would do this if
one or more of your files contain special data that needs to be at a particular location in
memory. For example:

data.o(.data)

To refine the sections that are included based on the section flags of an input section,
INPUT SECTION FLAGS may be used.

Here is a simple example for using Section header flags for ELF sections:

SECTIONS {
.text : { INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS (SHF_MERGE & SHF_STRINGS) *(.text) }
.text2 : { INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS (!SHF_WRITE) *(.text) }
}

In this example, the output section ‘.text’ will be comprised of any input section matching
the name *(.text) whose section header flags SHF_MERGE and SHF_STRINGS are set. The
output section ‘.text2’ will be comprised of any input section matching the name *(.text)
whose section header flag SHF_WRITE is clear.

You can also specify files within archives by writing a pattern matching the archive, a colon,
then the pattern matching the file, with no whitespace around the colon.

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‘archive:file’
matches file within archive
‘archive:’
matches the whole archive
‘:file’ matches file but not one in an archive

Either one or both of ‘archive’ and ‘file’ can contain shell wildcards. On DOS based file
systems, the linker will assume that a single letter followed by a colon is a drive specifier,
so ‘c:myfile.o’ is a simple file specification, not ‘myfile.o’ within an archive called ‘c’.
‘archive:file’ filespecs may also be used within an EXCLUDE_FILE list, but may not
appear in other linker script contexts. For instance, you cannot extract a file from an archive
by using ‘archive:file’ in an INPUT command.

If you use a file name without a list of sections, then all sections in the input file will be
included in the output section. This is not commonly done, but it may by useful on occasion.
For example:
data.o

When you use a file name which is not an ‘archive:file’ specifier and does not contain
any wild card characters, the linker will first see if you also specified the file name on the
linker command line or in an INPUT command. If you did not, the linker will attempt to
open the file as an input file, as though it appeared on the command line. Note that this
differs from an INPUT command, because the linker will not search for the file in the archive
search path.

3.6.4.2 Input Section Wildcard Patterns

In an input section description, either the file name or the section name or both may be
wildcard patterns.

The file name of ‘*’ seen in many examples is a simple wildcard pattern for the file name.

The wildcard patterns are like those used by the Unix shell.

‘*’ matches any number of characters

‘?’ matches any single character
‘[chars]’ matches a single instance of any of the chars; the ‘-’ character may be used
to specify a range of characters, as in ‘[a-z]’ to match any lower case letter
‘\’ quotes the following character

When a file name is matched with a wildcard, the wildcard characters will not match a ‘/’
character (used to separate directory names on Unix). A pattern consisting of a single ‘*’
character is an exception; it will always match any file name, whether it contains a ‘/’ or
not. In a section name, the wildcard characters will match a ‘/’ character.

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File name wildcard patterns only match files which are explicitly specified on the command
line or in an INPUT command. The linker does not search directories to expand wildcards.

If a file name matches more than one wildcard pattern, or if a file name appears explicitly and
is also matched by a wildcard pattern, the linker will use the first match in the linker script.
For example, this sequence of input section descriptions is probably in error, because the
‘data.o’ rule will not be used:

.data : { *(.data) }
.data1 : { data.o(.data) }

Normally, the linker will place files and sections matched by wildcards in the order in which
they are seen during the link. You can change this by using the SORT_BY_NAME keyword,
which appears before a wildcard pattern in parentheses (e.g., SORT_BY_NAME(.text*)).
When the SORT_BY_NAME keyword is used, the linker will sort the files or sections into
ascending order by name before placing them in the output file.

SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT is very similar to SORT_BY_NAME. The difference is

SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT will sort sections into ascending order by alignment before placing
them in the output file.

SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY is very similar to SORT_BY_NAME. The difference is

SORT_BY_INIT_PRIORITY will sort sections into ascending order by numerical value of
the GCC init priority attribute encoded in the section name before placing them in the
output file.

SORT is an alias for SORT_BY_NAME.

When there are nested section sorting commands in linker script, there can be at most 1
level of nesting for section sorting commands.

1. SORT_BY_NAME (SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (wildcard section pattern)). It will sort the

input sections by name first, then by alignment if 2 sections have the same name.
2. SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (SORT_BY_NAME (wildcard section pattern)). It will sort the
input sections by alignment first, then by name if 2 sections have the same alignment.
3. SORT_BY_NAME (SORT_BY_NAME (wildcard section pattern)) is treated the same as
SORT_BY_NAME (wildcard section pattern).
4. SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (wildcard section pattern)) is treated
the same as SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (wildcard section pattern).
5. All other nested section sorting commands are invalid.

When both command line section sorting option and linker script section sorting command
are used, section sorting command always takes precedence over the command line option.

If the section sorting command in linker script isn’t nested, the command line option will
make the section sorting command to be treated as nested sorting command.

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1. SORT_BY_NAME (wildcard section pattern ) with ‘--sort-sections alignment’ is

equivalent to SORT_BY_NAME (SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (wildcard section pattern)).
2. SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (wildcard section pattern) with ‘--sort-section name’ is
equivalent to SORT_BY_ALIGNMENT (SORT_BY_NAME (wildcard section pattern)).

If the section sorting command in linker script is nested, the command line option will be
ignored.

SORT_NONE disables section sorting by ignoring the command line section sorting option.

If you ever get confused about where input sections are going, use the ‘-M’ linker option to
generate a map file. The map file shows precisely how input sections are mapped to output
sections.
This example shows how wildcard patterns might be used to partition files. This linker
script directs the linker to place all ‘.text’ sections in ‘.text’ and all ‘.bss’ sections in
‘.bss’. The linker will place the ‘.data’ section from all files beginning with an upper case
character in ‘.DATA’; for all other files, the linker will place the ‘.data’ section in ‘.data’.
SECTIONS {
.text : { *(.text) }
.DATA : { [A-Z]*(.data) }
.data : { *(.data) }
.bss : { *(.bss) }
}

3.6.4.3 Input Section for Common Symbols

A special notation is needed for common symbols, because in many object file formats
common symbols do not have a particular input section. The linker treats common symbols
as though they are in an input section named ‘COMMON’.

You may use file names with the ‘COMMON’ section just as with any other input sections.
You can use this to place common symbols from a particular input file in one section while
common symbols from other input files are placed in another section.
In most cases, common symbols in input files will be placed in the ‘.bss’ section in the
output file. For example:
.bss { *(.bss) *(COMMON) }

Some object file formats have more than one type of common symbol. For example, the
MIPS ELF object file format distinguishes standard common symbols and small common
symbols. In this case, the linker will use a different special section name for other types of
common symbols. In the case of MIPS ELF, the linker uses ‘COMMON’ for standard common
symbols and ‘.scommon’ for small common symbols. This permits you to map the different
types of common symbols into memory at different locations.

You will sometimes see ‘[COMMON]’ in old linker scripts. This notation is now considered
obsolete. It is equivalent to ‘*(COMMON)’.

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3.6.4.4 Input Section and Garbage Collection

When link-time garbage collection is in use (‘--gc-sections’), it is often useful
to mark sections that should not be eliminated. This is accomplished by surround-
ing an input section’s wildcard entry with KEEP(), as in KEEP(*(.init)) or
KEEP(SORT_BY_NAME(*)(.ctors)).

3.6.4.5 Input Section Example

The following example is a complete linker script. It tells the linker to read all of the sections
from file ‘all.o’ and place them at the start of output section ‘outputa’ which starts
at location ‘0x10000’. All of section ‘.input1’ from file ‘foo.o’ follows immediately, in
the same output section. All of section ‘.input2’ from ‘foo.o’ goes into output section
‘outputb’, followed by section ‘.input1’ from ‘foo1.o’. All of the remaining ‘.input1’
and ‘.input2’ sections from any files are written to output section ‘outputc’.

SECTIONS {
outputa 0x10000 :
{
all.o
foo.o (.input1)
}
outputb :
{
foo.o (.input2)
foo1.o (.input1)
}
outputc :
{
*(.input1)
*(.input2)
}
}

3.6.5 Output Section Data

You can include explicit bytes of data in an output section by using BYTE, SHORT, LONG,
QUAD, or SQUAD as an output section command. Each keyword is followed by an expression
in parentheses providing the value to store (see Section 3.10 [Expressions], page 65). The
value of the expression is stored at the current value of the location counter.

The BYTE, SHORT, LONG, and QUAD commands store one, two, four, and eight bytes
(respectively). After storing the bytes, the location counter is incremented by the number
of bytes stored.

For example, this will store the byte 1 followed by the four byte value of the symbol ‘addr’:

BYTE(1)
LONG(addr)

When using a 64 bit host or target, QUAD and SQUAD are the same; they both store an 8
byte, or 64 bit, value. When both host and target are 32 bits, an expression is computed as

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32 bits. In this case QUAD stores a 32 bit value zero extended to 64 bits, and SQUAD stores
a 32 bit value sign extended to 64 bits.

If the object file format of the output file has an explicit endianness, which is the normal
case, the value will be stored in that endianness. When the object file format does not have
an explicit endianness, as is true of, for example, S-records, the value will be stored in the
endianness of the first input object file.
Note—these commands only work inside a section description and not between them, so
the following will produce an error from the linker:
SECTIONS { .text : { *(.text) } LONG(1) .data : { *(.data) } }

whereas this will work:

SECTIONS { .text : { *(.text) ; LONG(1) } .data : { *(.data) } }

You may use the FILL command to set the fill pattern for the current section. It is followed
by an expression in parentheses. Any otherwise unspecified regions of memory within
the section (for example, gaps left due to the required alignment of input sections) are
filled with the value of the expression, repeated as necessary. A FILL statement covers
memory locations after the point at which it occurs in the section definition; by including
more than one FILL statement, you can have different fill patterns in different parts of an
output section.
This example shows how to fill unspecified regions of memory with the value ‘0x90’:
FILL(0x90909090)

The FILL command is similar to the ‘=fillexp’ output section attribute, but it only affects
the part of the section following the FILL command, rather than the entire section. If both
are used, the FILL command takes precedence. See Section 3.6.8.8 [Output Section Fill],
page 56, for details on the fill expression.

3.6.6 Output Section Keywords

There are a couple of keywords which can appear as output section commands.

CREATE_OBJECT_SYMBOLS
The command tells the linker to create a symbol for each input file. The name
of each symbol will be the name of the corresponding input file. The section of
each symbol will be the output section in which the CREATE_OBJECT_SYMBOLS
command appears.
This is conventional for the a.out object file format. It is not normally used for
any other object file format.
CONSTRUCTORS
When linking using the a.out object file format, the linker uses an unusual set
construct to support C++ global constructors and destructors. When linking

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object file formats which do not support arbitrary sections, such as ECOFF
and XCOFF, the linker will automatically recognize C++ global constructors
and destructors by name. For these object file formats, the CONSTRUCTORS
command tells the linker to place constructor information in the output section
where the CONSTRUCTORS command appears. The CONSTRUCTORS command
is ignored for other object file formats.
The symbol __CTOR_LIST__ marks the start of the global constructors, and
the symbol __CTOR_END__ marks the end. Similarly, __DTOR_LIST__ and
__DTOR_END__ mark the start and end of the global destructors. The first word
in the list is the number of entries, followed by the address of each constructor
or destructor, followed by a zero word. The compiler must arrange to actually
run the code. For these object file formats GNU C++ normally calls constructors
from a subroutine __main; a call to __main is automatically inserted into the
startup code for main. GNU C++ normally runs destructors either by using
atexit, or directly from the function exit.
For object file formats such as COFF or ELF which support arbitrary section
names, GNU C++ will normally arrange to put the addresses of global con-
structors and destructors into the .ctors and .dtors sections. Placing the
following sequence into your linker script will build the sort of table which the
GNU C++ runtime code expects to see.
__CTOR_LIST__ = .;
LONG((__CTOR_END__ - __CTOR_LIST__) / 4 - 2)
*(.ctors)
LONG(0)
__CTOR_END__ = .;
__DTOR_LIST__ = .;
LONG((__DTOR_END__ - __DTOR_LIST__) / 4 - 2)
*(.dtors)
LONG(0)
__DTOR_END__ = .;

If you are using the GNU C++ support for initialization priority, which
provides some control over the order in which global constructors are
run, you must sort the constructors at link time to ensure that they
are executed in the correct order. When using the CONSTRUCTORS
command, use ‘SORT_BY_NAME(CONSTRUCTORS)’ instead. When using
the .ctors and .dtors sections, use ‘*(SORT_BY_NAME(.ctors))’
and ‘*(SORT_BY_NAME(.dtors))’ instead of just ‘*(.ctors)’ and
‘*(.dtors)’.
Normally the compiler and linker will handle these issues automatically, and
you will not need to concern yourself with them. However, you may need to
consider this if you are using C++ and writing your own linker scripts.

3.6.7 Output Section Discarding

The linker will not create output sections with no contents. This is for convenience when
referring to input sections that may or may not be present in any of the input files. For
example:

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.foo : { *(.foo) }

will only create a ‘.foo’ section in the output file if there is a ‘.foo’ section in at least one
input file, and if the input sections are not all empty. Other link script directives that allocate
space in an output section will also create the output section.

The linker will ignore address assignments (see Section 3.6.3 [Output Section Address],
page 44) on discarded output sections, except when the linker script defines symbols in
the output section. In that case the linker will obey the address assignments, possibly
advancing dot even though the section is discarded.

The special output section name ‘/DISCARD/’ may be used to discard input sections. Any
input sections which are assigned to an output section named ‘/DISCARD/’ are not included
in the output file.

3.6.8 Output Section Attributes

We showed above that the full description of an output section looked like this:
section [address] [(type)] :
[AT(lma)]
[ALIGN(section_align)]
[SUBALIGN(subsection_align)]
[constraint]
{
output-section-command
output-section-command
...
} [>region] [AT>lma_region] [:phdr :phdr ...] [=fillexp]

We’ve already described section, address, and output-section-command. In this section

we will describe the remaining section attributes.

3.6.8.1 Output Section Type

Each output section may have a type. The type is a keyword in parentheses. The following
types are defined:

NOLOAD The section should be marked as not loadable, so that it will not be loaded into
memory when the program is run.
DSECT
COPY
INFO
OVERLAY These type names are supported for backward compatibility, and are rarely
used. They all have the same effect: the section should be marked as not
allocatable, so that no memory is allocated for the section when the program
is run.

The linker normally sets the attributes of an output section based on the input sections
which map into it. You can override this by using the section type. For example, in the script

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sample below, the ‘ROM’ section is addressed at memory location ‘0’ and does not need to
be loaded when the program is run.

SECTIONS {
ROM 0 (NOLOAD) : { ... }
...
}

3.6.8.2 Output Section LMA

Every section has a virtual address (VMA) and a load address (LMA); see Section 3.1
[Basic Script Concepts], page 31. The virtual address is specified by the see Section 3.6.3
[Output Section Address], page 44 described earlier. The load address is specified by the
AT or AT> keywords. Specifying a load address is optional.

The AT keyword takes an expression as an argument. This specifies the exact load address
of the section. The AT> keyword takes the name of a memory region as an argument. See
Section 3.7 [MEMORY], page 58. The load address of the section is set to the next free
address in the region, aligned to the section’s alignment requirements.

If neither AT nor AT> is specified for an allocatable section, the linker will use the following
heuristic to determine the load address:

If the section has a specific VMA address, then this is used as the LMA address as
well.

If the section is not allocatable then its LMA is set to its VMA.

Otherwise if a memory region can be found that is compatible with the current section,
and this region contains at least one section, then the LMA is set so the difference
between the VMA and LMA is the same as the difference between the VMA and LMA
of the last section in the located region.

If no memory regions have been declared then a default region that covers the entire
address space is used in the previous step.

If no suitable region could be found, or there was no previous section then the LMA is
set equal to the VMA.

This feature is designed to make it easy to build a ROM image. For example, the following
linker script creates three output sections: one called ‘.text’, which starts at 0x1000, one
called ‘.mdata’, which is loaded at the end of the ‘.text’ section even though its VMA is
0x2000, and one called ‘.bss’ to hold uninitialized data at address 0x3000. The symbol
_data is defined with the value 0x2000, which shows that the location counter holds the
VMA value, not the LMA value.

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SECTIONS
{
.text 0x1000 : { *(.text) _etext = . ; }
.mdata 0x2000 :
AT ( ADDR (.text) + SIZEOF (.text) )
{ _data = . ; *(.data); _edata = . ; }
.bss 0x3000 :
{ _bstart = . ; *(.bss) *(COMMON) ; _bend = . ;}
}

The run-time initialization code for use with a program generated with this linker script would
include something like the following, to copy the initialized data from the ROM image to its
runtime address. Notice how this code takes advantage of the symbols defined by the linker
script.

extern char _etext, _data, _edata, _bstart, _bend;

char *src = &_etext;
char *dst = &_data;

/* ROM has data at end of text; copy it. */

while (dst < &_edata)
*dst++ = *src++;

/* Zero bss. */
for (dst = &_bstart; dst< &_bend; dst++)
*dst = 0;

3.6.8.3 Forced Output Alignment

You can increase an output section’s alignment by using ALIGN.

3.6.8.4 Forced Input Alignment

You can force input section alignment within an output section by using SUBALIGN. The
value specified overrides any alignment given by input sections, whether larger or smaller.

3.6.8.5 Output Section Constraint

You can specify that an output section should only be created if all of its input sections are
read-only or all of its input sections are read-write by using the keyword ONLY_IF_RO and
ONLY_IF_RW respectively.

3.6.8.6 Output Section Region

You can assign a section to a previously defined region of memory by using ‘>region’.
See Section 3.7 [MEMORY], page 58.

Here is a simple example:

MEMORY { rom : ORIGIN = 0x1000, LENGTH = 0x1000 }

SECTIONS { ROM : { *(.text) } >rom }

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3.6.8.7 Output Section Phdr

You can assign a section to a previously defined program segment by using ‘:phdr’. See
Section 3.8 [PHDRS], page 60. If a section is assigned to one or more segments, then all
subsequent allocated sections will be assigned to those segments as well, unless they use
an explicitly :phdr modifier. You can use :NONE to tell the linker to not put the section in
any segment at all.

Here is a simple example:

PHDRS { text PT_LOAD ; }

SECTIONS { .text : { *(.text) } :text }

3.6.8.8 Output Section Fill

You can set the fill pattern for an entire section by using ‘=fillexp’. fillexp is an expression
(see Section 3.10 [Expressions], page 65). Any otherwise unspecified regions of memory
within the output section (for example, gaps left due to the required alignment of input
sections) will be filled with the value, repeated as necessary. If the fill expression is a
simple hex number, ie. a string of hex digit starting with ‘0x’ and without a trailing ‘k’ or ‘M’,
then an arbitrarily long sequence of hex digits can be used to specify the fill pattern; Leading
zeros become part of the pattern too. For all other cases, including extra parentheses or a
unary +, the fill pattern is the four least significant bytes of the value of the expression. In
all cases, the number is big-endian.

You can also change the fill value with a FILL command in the output section commands;
(see Section 3.6.5 [Output Section Data], page 50).

Here is a simple example:

SECTIONS { .text : { *(.text) } =0x90909090 }

3.6.9 Overlay Description

An overlay description provides an easy way to describe sections which are to be loaded
as part of a single memory image but are to be run at the same memory address. At
run time, some sort of overlay manager will copy the overlaid sections in and out of the
runtime memory address as required, perhaps by simply manipulating addressing bits.
This approach can be useful, for example, when a certain region of memory is faster than
another.

Overlays are described using the OVERLAY command. The OVERLAY command is used
within a SECTIONS command, like an output section description. The full syntax of the
OVERLAY command is as follows:

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OVERLAY [start] : [NOCROSSREFS] [AT ( ldaddr )]

{
secname1
{
output-section-command
output-section-command
...
} [:phdr...] [=fill]
secname2
{
output-section-command
output-section-command
...
} [:phdr...] [=fill]
...
} [>region] [:phdr...] [=fill]

Everything is optional except OVERLAY (a keyword), and each section must have a name
(secname1 and secname2 above). The section definitions within the OVERLAY construct
are identical to those within the general SECTIONS contruct (see Section 3.6 [SECTIONS],
page 43), except that no addresses and no memory regions may be defined for sections
within an OVERLAY.

The sections are all defined with the same starting address. The load addresses of the
sections are arranged such that they are consecutive in memory starting at the load address
used for the OVERLAY as a whole (as with normal section definitions, the load address is
optional, and defaults to the start address; the start address is also optional, and defaults
to the current value of the location counter).

If the NOCROSSREFS keyword is used, and there any references among the sections, the
linker will report an error. Since the sections all run at the same address, it normally does not
make sense for one section to refer directly to another. See Section 3.4.4 [Miscellaneous
Commands], page 38.

For each section within the OVERLAY, the linker automatically provides two symbols. The
symbol __load_start_secname is defined as the starting load address of the section.
The symbol __load_stop_secname is defined as the final load address of the section.
Any characters within secname which are not legal within C identifiers are removed. C
(or assembler) code may use these symbols to move the overlaid sections around as
necessary.

At the end of the overlay, the value of the location counter is set to the start address of the
overlay plus the size of the largest section.

Here is an example. Remember that this would appear inside a SECTIONS construct.

OVERLAY 0x1000 : AT (0x4000)

{
.text0 { o1/*.o(.text) }
.text1 { o2/*.o(.text) }
}

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This will define both ‘.text0’ and ‘.text1’ to start at address 0x1000. ‘.text0’
will be loaded at address 0x4000, and ‘.text1’ will be loaded immediately after
‘.text0’. The following symbols will be defined if referenced: __load_start_text0,
__load_stop_text0, __load_start_text1, __load_stop_text1.

C code to copy overlay .text1 into the overlay area might look like the following.

extern char __load_start_text1, __load_stop_text1;

memcpy ((char *) 0x1000, &__load_start_text1,
&__load_stop_text1 - &__load_start_text1);

Note that the OVERLAY command is just syntactic sugar, since everything it does can
be done using the more basic commands. The above example could have been written
identically as follows.

.text0 0x1000 : AT (0x4000) { o1/*.o(.text) }

PROVIDE (__load_start_text0 = LOADADDR (.text0));
PROVIDE (__load_stop_text0 = LOADADDR (.text0) + SIZEOF (.text0));
.text1 0x1000 : AT (0x4000 + SIZEOF (.text0)) { o2/*.o(.text) }
PROVIDE (__load_start_text1 = LOADADDR (.text1));
PROVIDE (__load_stop_text1 = LOADADDR (.text1) + SIZEOF (.text1));
. = 0x1000 + MAX (SIZEOF (.text0), SIZEOF (.text1));

3.7 MEMORY Command

The linker’s default configuration permits allocation of all available memory. You can override
this by using the MEMORY command.

The MEMORY command describes the location and size of blocks of memory in the target.
You can use it to describe which memory regions may be used by the linker, and which
memory regions it must avoid. You can then assign sections to particular memory regions.
The linker will set section addresses based on the memory regions, and will warn about
regions that become too full. The linker will not shuffle sections around to fit into the
available regions.

A linker script may contain at most one use of the MEMORY command. However, you can
define as many blocks of memory within it as you wish. The syntax is:

MEMORY
{
name [(attr)] : ORIGIN = origin, LENGTH = len
...
}

The name is a name used in the linker script to refer to the region. The region name
has no meaning outside of the linker script. Region names are stored in a separate name
space, and will not conflict with symbol names, file names, or section names. Each memory
region must have a distinct name within the MEMORY command. However you can add later
alias names to existing memory regions with the Section 3.4.3 [REGION ALIAS], page 35
command.

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The attr string is an optional list of attributes that specify whether to use a particular memory
region for an input section which is not explicitly mapped in the linker script. As described
in Section 3.6 [SECTIONS], page 43, if you do not specify an output section for some input
section, the linker will create an output section with the same name as the input section.
If you define region attributes, the linker will use them to select the memory region for the
output section that it creates.

The attr string must consist only of the following characters:

‘R’ Read-only section

‘W’ Read/write section
‘X’ Executable section
‘A’ Allocatable section
‘I’ Initialized section
‘L’ Same as ‘I’
‘!’ Invert the sense of any of the attributes that follow

If a unmapped section matches any of the listed attributes other than ‘!’, it will be placed
in the memory region. The ‘!’ attribute reverses this test, so that an unmapped section will
be placed in the memory region only if it does not match any of the listed attributes.

The origin is an numerical expression for the start address of the memory region. The
expression must evaluate to a constant and it cannot involve any symbols. The keyword
ORIGIN may be abbreviated to org or o (but not, for example, ORG).

The len is an expression for the size in bytes of the memory region. As with the origin
expression, the expression must be numerical only and must evaluate to a constant. The
keyword LENGTH may be abbreviated to len or l.

In the following example, we specify that there are two memory regions available for allo-
cation: one starting at ‘0’ for 256 kilobytes, and the other starting at ‘0x40000000’ for four
megabytes. The linker will place into the ‘rom’ memory region every section which is not
explicitly mapped into a memory region, and is either read-only or executable. The linker
will place other sections which are not explicitly mapped into a memory region into the ‘ram’
memory region.
MEMORY
{
rom (rx) : ORIGIN = 0, LENGTH = 256K
ram (!rx) : org = 0x40000000, l = 4M
}

Once you define a memory region, you can direct the linker to place specific output sections
into that memory region by using the ‘>region’ output section attribute. For example, if you

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have a memory region named ‘mem’, you would use ‘>mem’ in the output section definition.
See Section 3.6.8.6 [Output Section Region], page 55. If no address was specified for
the output section, the linker will set the address to the next available address within the
memory region. If the combined output sections directed to a memory region are too large
for the region, the linker will issue an error message.

It is possible to access the origin and length of a memory in an expression via the
ORIGIN(memory) and LENGTH(memory) functions:
_fstack = ORIGIN(ram) + LENGTH(ram) - 4;

3.8 PHDRS Command

The ELF object file format uses program headers, also knows as segments. The program
headers describe how the program should be loaded into memory. You can print them out
by using the objdump program with the ‘-p’ option.

When you run an ELF program on a native ELF system, the system loader reads the
program headers in order to figure out how to load the program. This will only work if the
program headers are set correctly. This manual does not describe the details of how the
system loader interprets program headers; for more information, see the ELF ABI.

The linker will create reasonable program headers by default. However, in some cases,
you may need to specify the program headers more precisely. You may use the PHDRS
command for this purpose. When the linker sees the PHDRS command in the linker script,
it will not create any program headers other than the ones specified.

The linker only pays attention to the PHDRS command when generating an ELF output file.
In other cases, the linker will simply ignore PHDRS.

This is the syntax of the PHDRS command. The words PHDRS, FILEHDR, AT, and FLAGS
are keywords.
PHDRS
{
name type [ FILEHDR ] [ PHDRS ] [ AT ( address ) ]
[ FLAGS ( flags ) ] ;
}

The name is used only for reference in the SECTIONS command of the linker script. It is not
put into the output file. Program header names are stored in a separate name space, and
will not conflict with symbol names, file names, or section names. Each program header
must have a distinct name. The headers are processed in order and it is usual for them to
map to sections in ascending load address order.

Certain program header types describe segments of memory which the system loader will
load from the file. In the linker script, you specify the contents of these segments by placing
allocatable output sections in the segments. You use the ‘:phdr’ output section attribute

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to place a section in a particular segment. See Section 3.6.8.7 [Output Section Phdr],
page 55.

It is normal to put certain sections in more than one segment. This merely implies that
one segment of memory contains another. You may repeat ‘:phdr’, using it once for each
segment which should contain the section.

If you place a section in one or more segments using ‘:phdr’, then the linker will place all
subsequent allocatable sections which do not specify ‘:phdr’ in the same segments. This
is for convenience, since generally a whole set of contiguous sections will be placed in a
single segment. You can use :NONE to override the default segment and tell the linker to
not put the section in any segment at all.

You may use the FILEHDR and PHDRS keywords after the program header type to further
describe the contents of the segment. The FILEHDR keyword means that the segment
should include the ELF file header. The PHDRS keyword means that the segment should
include the ELF program headers themselves. If applied to a loadable segment (PT_LOAD),
all prior loadable segments must have one of these keywords.

The type may be one of the following. The numbers indicate the value of the keyword.

PT_NULL (0)
Indicates an unused program header.
PT_LOAD (1)
Indicates that this program header describes a segment to be loaded from the
file.
PT_DYNAMIC (2)
Indicates a segment where dynamic linking information can be found.
PT_INTERP (3)
Indicates a segment where the name of the program interpreter may be found.
PT_NOTE (4)
Indicates a segment holding note information.
PT_SHLIB (5)
A reserved program header type, defined but not specified by the ELF ABI.
PT_PHDR (6)
Indicates a segment where the program headers may be found.
expression
An expression giving the numeric type of the program header. This may be
used for types not defined above.

You can specify that a segment should be loaded at a particular address in memory by
using an AT expression. This is identical to the AT command used as an output section

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attribute (see Section 3.6.8.2 [Output Section LMA], page 54). The AT command for a
program header overrides the output section attribute.

The linker will normally set the segment flags based on the sections which comprise the
segment. You may use the FLAGS keyword to explicitly specify the segment flags. The
value of flags must be an integer. It is used to set the p_flags field of the program header.

Here is an example of PHDRS. This shows a typical set of program headers used on a
native ELF system.

PHDRS
{
headers PT_PHDR PHDRS ;
interp PT_INTERP ;
text PT_LOAD FILEHDR PHDRS ;
data PT_LOAD ;
dynamic PT_DYNAMIC ;
}

SECTIONS
{
. = SIZEOF_HEADERS;
.interp : { *(.interp) } :text :interp
.text : { *(.text) } :text
.rodata : { *(.rodata) } /* defaults to :text */
...
. = . + 0x1000; /* move to a new page in memory */
.data : { *(.data) } :data
.dynamic : { *(.dynamic) } :data :dynamic
...
}

3.9 VERSION Command

The linker supports symbol versions when using ELF. Symbol versions are only useful
when using shared libraries. The dynamic linker can use symbol versions to select a
specific version of a function when it runs a program that may have been linked against an
earlier version of the shared library.

You can include a version script directly in the main linker script, or you can supply the
version script as an implicit linker script. You can also use the ‘--version-script’ linker
option.

The syntax of the VERSION command is simply

VERSION { version-script-commands }

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The format of the version script commands is identical to that used by Sun’s linker in Solaris
2.5. The version script defines a tree of version nodes. You specify the node names and
interdependencies in the version script. You can specify which symbols are bound to which
version nodes, and you can reduce a specified set of symbols to local scope so that they
are not globally visible outside of the shared library.

The easiest way to demonstrate the version script language is with a few examples.

VERS_1.1 {
global:
foo1;
local:
old*;
original*;
new*;
};

VERS_1.2 {
foo2;
} VERS_1.1;

VERS_2.0 {
bar1; bar2;
extern "C++" {
ns::*;
"f(int, double)";
};
} VERS_1.2;

This example version script defines three version nodes. The first version node defined
is ‘VERS_1.1’; it has no other dependencies. The script binds the symbol ‘foo1’ to
‘VERS_1.1’. It reduces a number of symbols to local scope so that they are not visible
outside of the shared library; this is done using wildcard patterns, so that any symbol
whose name begins with ‘old’, ‘original’, or ‘new’ is matched. The wildcard patterns
available are the same as those used in the shell when matching filenames (also known as
“globbing”). However, if you specify the symbol name inside double quotes, then the name
is treated as literal, rather than as a glob pattern.

Next, the version script defines node ‘VERS_1.2’. This node depends upon ‘VERS_1.1’.
The script binds the symbol ‘foo2’ to the version node ‘VERS_1.2’.

Finally, the version script defines node ‘VERS_2.0’. This node depends upon ‘VERS_1.2’.
The scripts binds the symbols ‘bar1’ and ‘bar2’ are bound to the version node ‘VERS_2.0’.

When the linker finds a symbol defined in a library which is not specifically bound to a
version node, it will effectively bind it to an unspecified base version of the library. You
can bind all otherwise unspecified symbols to a given version node by using ‘global: *;’
somewhere in the version script. Note that it’s slightly crazy to use wildcards in a global spec
except on the last version node. Global wildcards elsewhere run the risk of accidentally

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adding symbols to the set exported for an old version. That’s wrong since older versions
ought to have a fixed set of symbols.

The names of the version nodes have no specific meaning other than what they might
suggest to the person reading them. The ‘2.0’ version could just as well have appeared in
between ‘1.1’ and ‘1.2’. However, this would be a confusing way to write a version script.

Node name can be omitted, provided it is the only version node in the version script. Such
version script doesn’t assign any versions to symbols, only selects which symbols will be
globally visible out and which won’t.
{ global: foo; bar; local: *; };

When you link an application against a shared library that has versioned symbols, the
application itself knows which version of each symbol it requires, and it also knows which
version nodes it needs from each shared library it is linked against. Thus at runtime, the
dynamic loader can make a quick check to make sure that the libraries you have linked
against do in fact supply all of the version nodes that the application will need to resolve
all of the dynamic symbols. In this way it is possible for the dynamic linker to know with
certainty that all external symbols that it needs will be resolvable without having to search
for each symbol reference.

The symbol versioning is in effect a much more sophisticated way of doing minor version
checking that SunOS does. The fundamental problem that is being addressed here is
that typically references to external functions are bound on an as-needed basis, and are
not all bound when the application starts up. If a shared library is out of date, a required
interface may be missing; when the application tries to use that interface, it may suddenly
and unexpectedly fail. With symbol versioning, the user will get a warning when they start
their program if the libraries being used with the application are too old.

There are several GNU extensions to Sun’s versioning approach. The first of these is the
ability to bind a symbol to a version node in the source file where the symbol is defined
instead of in the versioning script. This was done mainly to reduce the burden on the library
maintainer. You can do this by putting something like:
__asm__(".symver original_foo,foo@VERS_1.1");

in the C source file. This renames the function ‘original_foo’ to be an alias for ‘foo’
bound to the version node ‘VERS_1.1’. The ‘local:’ directive can be used to prevent the
symbol ‘original_foo’ from being exported. A ‘.symver’ directive takes precedence
over a version script.

The second GNU extension is to allow multiple versions of the same function to appear
in a given shared library. In this way you can make an incompatible change to an inter-
face without increasing the major version number of the shared library, while still allowing
applications linked against the old interface to continue to function.

To do this, you must use multiple ‘.symver’ directives in the source file. Here is an example:

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__asm__(".symver original_foo,foo@");
__asm__(".symver old_foo,foo@VERS_1.1");
__asm__(".symver old_foo1,foo@VERS_1.2");
__asm__(".symver new_foo,foo@@VERS_2.0");

In this example, ‘foo@’ represents the symbol ‘foo’ bound to the unspecified base version
of the symbol. The source file that contains this example would define 4 C functions:
‘original_foo’, ‘old_foo’, ‘old_foo1’, and ‘new_foo’.

When you have multiple definitions of a given symbol, there needs to be some way to
specify a default version to which external references to this symbol will be bound. You
can do this with the ‘foo@@VERS_2.0’ type of ‘.symver’ directive. You can only declare
one version of a symbol as the default in this manner; otherwise you would effectively have
multiple definitions of the same symbol.

If you wish to bind a reference to a specific version of the symbol within the shared library,
you can use the aliases of convenience (i.e., ‘old_foo’), or you can use the ‘.symver’
directive to specifically bind to an external version of the function in question.

You can also specify the language in the version script:

VERSION extern "lang" { version-script-commands }

The supported ‘lang’s are ‘C’, ‘C++’, and ‘Java’. The linker will iterate over the list of
symbols at the link time and demangle them according to ‘lang’ before matching them to
the patterns specified in ‘version-script-commands’. The default ‘lang’ is ‘C’.

Demangled names may contains spaces and other special characters. As described above,
you can use a glob pattern to match demangled names, or you can use a double-quoted
string to match the string exactly. In the latter case, be aware that minor differences (such
as differing whitespace) between the version script and the demangler output will cause
a mismatch. As the exact string generated by the demangler might change in the future,
even if the mangled name does not, you should check that all of your version directives are
behaving as you expect when you upgrade.

3.10 Expressions in Linker Scripts

The syntax for expressions in the linker script language is identical to that of C expressions.
All expressions are evaluated as integers. All expressions are evaluated in the same size,
which is 32 bits if both the host and target are 32 bits, and is otherwise 64 bits.

You can use and set symbol values in expressions.

The linker defines several special purpose builtin functions for use in expressions.

3.10.1 Constants
All constants are integers.

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As in C, the linker considers an integer beginning with ‘0’ to be octal, and an integer
beginning with ‘0x’ or ‘0X’ to be hexadecimal. Alternatively the linker accepts suffixes of ‘h’
or ‘H’ for hexadeciaml, ‘o’ or ‘O’ for octal, ‘b’ or ‘B’ for binary and ‘d’ or ‘D’ for decimal. Any
integer value without a prefix or a suffix is considered to be decimal.

In addition, you can use the suffixes K and M to scale a constant by 1024 or 10242 respec-
tively. For example, the following all refer to the same quantity:
_fourk_1 = 4K;
_fourk_2 = 4096;
_fourk_3 = 0x1000;
_fourk_4 = 10000o;

Note - the K and M suffixes cannot be used in conjunction with the base suffixes mentioned
above.

3.10.2 Symbolic Constants

It is possible to refer to target specific constants via the use of the CONSTANT(name)
operator, where name is one of:

MAXPAGESIZE
The target’s maximum page size.
COMMONPAGESIZE
The target’s default page size.

So for example:
.text ALIGN (CONSTANT (MAXPAGESIZE)) : { *(.text) }

will create a text section aligned to the largest page boundary supported by the target.

3.10.3 Symbol Names

Unless quoted, symbol names start with a letter, underscore, or period and may include
letters, digits, underscores, periods, and hyphens. Unquoted symbol names must not
conflict with any keywords. You can specify a symbol which contains odd characters or has
the same name as a keyword by surrounding the symbol name in double quotes:
"SECTION" = 9;
"with a space" = "also with a space" + 10;

Since symbols can contain many non-alphabetic characters, it is safest to delimit symbols
with spaces. For example, ‘A-B’ is one symbol, whereas ‘A - B’ is an expression involving
subtraction.

3.10.4 Orphan Sections

Orphan sections are sections present in the input files which are not explicitly placed into
the output file by the linker script. The linker will still copy these sections into the output file,

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but it has to guess as to where they should be placed. The linker uses a simple heuristic
to do this. It attempts to place orphan sections after non-orphan sections of the same
attribute, such as code vs data, loadable vs non-loadable, etc. If there is not enough room
to do this then it places at the end of the file.
For ELF targets, the attribute of the section includes section type as well as section
flag.
If an orphaned section’s name is representable as a C identifier then the linker will au-
tomatically see Section 3.5.3 [PROVIDE], page 41 two symbols: start SECNAME and
stop SECNAME, where SECNAME is the name of the section. These indicate the start
address and end address of the orphaned section respectively. Note: most section names
are not representable as C identifiers because they contain a ‘.’ character.
For Xtensa processors, xt-ld does not accept orphan sections.
3.10.5 The Location Counter

The special linker variable dot ‘.’ always contains the current output location counter. Since
the . always refers to a location in an output section, it may only appear in an expression
within a SECTIONS command. The . symbol may appear anywhere that an ordinary symbol
is allowed in an expression.
Assigning a value to . will cause the location counter to be moved. This may be used
to create holes in the output section. The location counter may not be moved backwards
inside an output section, and may not be moved backwards outside of an output section if
so doing creates areas with overlapping LMAs.
SECTIONS
{
output :
{
file1(.text)
. = . + 1000;
file2(.text)
. += 1000;
file3(.text)
} = 0x12345678;
}

In the previous example, the ‘.text’ section from ‘file1’ is located at the beginning of
the output section ‘output’. It is followed by a 1000 byte gap. Then the ‘.text’ section
from ‘file2’ appears, also with a 1000 byte gap following before the ‘.text’ section
from ‘file3’. The notation ‘= 0x12345678’ specifies what data to write in the gaps (see
Section 3.6.8.8 [Output Section Fill], page 56).
Note: . actually refers to the byte offset from the start of the current containing object.
Normally this is the SECTIONS statement, whose start address is 0, hence . can be used
as an absolute address. If . is used inside a section description however, it refers to the
byte offset from the start of that section, not an absolute address. Thus in a script like this:
SECTIONS
{

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. = 0x100
.text: {
*(.text)
. = 0x200
}
. = 0x500
.data: {
*(.data)
. += 0x600
}
}

The ‘.text’ section will be assigned a starting address of 0x100 and a size of exactly
0x200 bytes, even if there is not enough data in the ‘.text’ input sections to fill this area.
(If there is too much data, an error will be produced because this would be an attempt to
move . backwards). The ‘.data’ section will start at 0x500 and it will have an extra 0x600
bytes worth of space after the end of the values from the ‘.data’ input sections and before
the end of the ‘.data’ output section itself.

Setting symbols to the value of the location counter outside of an output section statement
can result in unexpected values if the linker needs to place orphan sections. For example,
given the following:
SECTIONS
{
start_of_text = . ;
.text: { *(.text) }
end_of_text = . ;

start_of_data = . ;
.data: { *(.data) }
end_of_data = . ;
}

If the linker needs to place some input section, e.g. .rodata, not mentioned in the script,
it might choose to place that section between .text and .data. You might think the
linker should place .rodata on the blank line in the above script, but blank lines are of no
particular significance to the linker. As well, the linker doesn’t associate the above symbol
names with their sections. Instead, it assumes that all assignments or other statements
belong to the previous output section, except for the special case of an assignment to ..
I.e., the linker will place the orphan .rodata section as if the script was written as follows:
SECTIONS
{
start_of_text = . ;
.text: { *(.text) }
end_of_text = . ;

start_of_data = . ;
.rodata: { *(.rodata) }
.data: { *(.data) }
end_of_data = . ;
}

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This may or may not be the script author’s intention for the value of start_of_data. One
way to influence the orphan section placement is to assign the location counter to itself, as
the linker assumes that an assignment to . is setting the start address of a following output
section and thus should be grouped with that section. So you could write:

SECTIONS
{
start_of_text = . ;
.text: { *(.text) }
end_of_text = . ;

. = . ;
start_of_data = . ;
.data: { *(.data) }
end_of_data = . ;
}

Now, the orphan .rodata section will be placed between end_of_text and
start_of_data.

3.10.6 Operators
The linker recognizes the standard C set of arithmetic operators, with the standard bindings
and precedence levels:

Precedence Associativity Operators

highest
1 left - ˜ ! †
2 left * / %
3 left + -
4 left >> <<
5 left == != > < <= >=
6 left &
7 left |
8 left &&
9 left ||
10 right ? :
11 right &= += -= *= /= ‡
lowest
† Prefix operators.
‡ See Section 3.5 [Assignments], page 39.

3.10.7 Evaluation
The linker evaluates expressions lazily. It only computes the value of an expression when
absolutely necessary.

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The linker needs some information, such as the value of the start address of the first
section, and the origins and lengths of memory regions, in order to do any linking at all.
These values are computed as soon as possible when the linker reads in the linker script.

However, other values (such as symbol values) are not known or needed until after storage
allocation. Such values are evaluated later, when other information (such as the sizes of
output sections) is available for use in the symbol assignment expression.

The sizes of sections cannot be known until after allocation, so assignments dependent
upon these are not performed until after allocation.

Some expressions, such as those depending upon the location counter ‘.’, must be evalu-
ated during section allocation.

If the result of an expression is required, but the value is not available, then an error results.
For example, a script like the following

SECTIONS
{
.text 9+this_isnt_constant :
{ *(.text) }
}

will cause the error message ‘non constant expression for initial address’.

3.10.8 The Section of an Expression

Addresses and symbols may be section relative, or absolute. A section relative symbol is
relocatable. If you request relocatable output using the ‘-r’ option, a further link operation
may change the value of a section relative symbol. On the other hand, an absolute symbol
will retain the same value throughout any further link operations.

Some terms in linker expressions are addresses. This is true of section relative symbols
and for builtin functions that return an address, such as ADDR, LOADADDR, ORIGIN and
SEGMENT_START. Other terms are simply numbers, or are builtin functions that return a
non-address value, such as LENGTH. One complication is that unless you set LD_FEATURE
("SANE_EXPR") (see Section 3.4.4 [Miscellaneous Commands], page 38), numbers and
absolute symbols are treated differently depending on their location, for compatibility with
older versions of ld. Expressions appearing outside an output section definition treat all
numbers as absolute addresses. Expressions appearing inside an output section defini-
tion treat absolute symbols as numbers. If LD_FEATURE ("SANE_EXPR") is given, then
absolute symbols and numbers are simply treated as numbers everywhere.

In the following simple example,

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SECTIONS
{
. = 0x100;
__executable_start = 0x100;
.data :
{
. = 0x10;
__data_start = 0x10;
*(.data)
}
...
}

both . and __executable_start are set to the absolute address 0x100 in the first two
assignments, then both . and __data_start are set to 0x10 relative to the .data section
in the second two assignments.

For expressions involving numbers, relative addresses and absolute addresses, ld follows
these rules to evaluate terms:

Unary operations on a relative address, and binary operations on two relative addresses
in the same section or between one relative address and a number, apply the operator
to the offset part of the address(es).
Unary operations on an absolute address, and binary operations on one or more
absolute addresses or on two relative addresses not in the same section, first convert
any non-absolute term to an absolute address before applying the operator.

The result section of each sub-expression is as follows:

An operation involving only numbers results in a number.

The result of comparisons, ‘&&’ and ‘||’ is also a number.
The result of other binary arithmetic and logical operations on two relative addresses in
the same section or two absolute addresess (after above conversions) is also a number.
The result of other operations on relative addresses or one relative address and a
number, is a relative address in the same section as the relative operand(s).
The result of other operations on absolute addresses (after above conversions) is an
absolute address.

You can use the builtin function ABSOLUTE to force an expression to be absolute when it
would otherwise be relative. For example, to create an absolute symbol set to the address
of the end of the output section ‘.data’:

SECTIONS
{
.data : { *(.data) _edata = ABSOLUTE(.); }
}

If ‘ABSOLUTE’ were not used, ‘_edata’ would be relative to the ‘.data’ section.

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Using LOADADDR also forces an expression absolute, since this particular builtin function
returns an absolute address.

3.10.9 Builtin Functions

The linker script language includes a number of builtin functions for use in linker script
expressions.

ABSOLUTE(exp)
Return the absolute (non-relocatable, as opposed to non-negative) value of the
expression exp. Primarily useful to assign an absolute value to a symbol within
a section definition, where symbol values are normally section relative. See
Section 3.10.8 [Expression Section], page 70.
ADDR(section)
Return the address (VMA) of the named section. Your script must previ-
ously have defined the location of that section. In the following example,
start_of_output_1, symbol_1 and symbol_2 are assigned equivalent
values, except that symbol_1 will be relative to the .output1 section while
the other two will be absolute:
SECTIONS { ...
.output1 :
{
start_of_output_1 = ABSOLUTE(.);
...
}
.output :
{
symbol_1 = ADDR(.output1);
symbol_2 = start_of_output_1;
}
... }

ALIGN(align)
ALIGN(exp,align)
Return the location counter (.) or arbitrary expression aligned to the next
align boundary. The single operand ALIGN doesn’t change the value of the
location counter—it just does arithmetic on it. The two operand ALIGN allows
an arbitrary expression to be aligned upwards (ALIGN(align) is equivalent
to ALIGN(., align)).
Here is an example which aligns the output .data section to the next 0x2000
byte boundary after the preceding section and sets a variable within the section
to the next 0x8000 boundary after the input sections:
SECTIONS { ...
.data ALIGN(0x2000): {
*(.data)
variable = ALIGN(0x8000);
}
... }
The first use of ALIGN in this example specifies the location of a section
because it is used as the optional address attribute of a section definition (see

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Section 3.6.3 [Output Section Address], page 44). The second use of ALIGN
is used to defines the value of a symbol.
The builtin function NEXT is closely related to ALIGN.
ALIGNOF(section)
Return the alignment in bytes of the named section, if that section has been
allocated. If the section has not been allocated when this is evaluated, the linker
will report an error. In the following example, the alignment of the .output
section is stored as the first value in that section.
SECTIONS{ ...
.output {
LONG (ALIGNOF (.output))
...
}
... }

BLOCK(exp)
This is a synonym for ALIGN, for compatibility with older linker scripts. It is
most often seen when setting the address of an output section.
DATA_SEGMENT_ALIGN(maxpagesize, commonpagesize)
This is equivalent to either
(ALIGN(maxpagesize) + (. & (maxpagesize - 1)))
or
(ALIGN(maxpagesize) + (. & (maxpagesize - commonpagesize)))
depending on whether the latter uses fewer commonpagesize sized pages
for the data segment (area between the result of this expression and
DATA_SEGMENT_END) than the former or not. If the latter form is used, it means
commonpagesize bytes of runtime memory will be saved at the expense of up
to commonpagesize wasted bytes in the on-disk file.
This expression can only be used directly in SECTIONS commands, not in any
output section descriptions and only once in the linker script. commonpagesize
should be less or equal to maxpagesize and should be the system page size
the object wants to be optimized for (while still working on system page sizes
up to maxpagesize).
Example:
. = DATA_SEGMENT_ALIGN(0x10000, 0x2000);

DATA_SEGMENT_END(exp)
This defines the end of data segment for DATA_SEGMENT_ALIGN evaluation
purposes.
. = DATA_SEGMENT_END(.);

DATA_SEGMENT_RELRO_END(offset, exp)
This defines the end of the PT_GNU_RELRO segment when ‘-z relro’
option is used. Second argument is returned. When ‘-z relro’ op-
tion is not present, DATA_SEGMENT_RELRO_END does nothing, otherwise
DATA_SEGMENT_ALIGN is padded so that exp + offset is aligned to the
most commonly used page boundary for particular target. If present in the

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linker script, it must always come in between DATA_SEGMENT_ALIGN and

DATA_SEGMENT_END.
. = DATA_SEGMENT_RELRO_END(24, .);

DEFINED(symbol)
Return 1 if symbol is in the linker global symbol table and is defined before
the statement using DEFINED in the script, otherwise return 0. You can use
this function to provide default values for symbols. For example, the following
script fragment shows how to set a global symbol ‘begin’ to the first location
in the ‘.text’ section—but if a symbol called ‘begin’ already existed, its value
is preserved:
SECTIONS { ...
.text : {
begin = DEFINED(begin) ? begin : . ;
...
}
...
}

LENGTH(memory)
Return the length of the memory region named memory.
LOADADDR(section)
Return the absolute LMA of the named section. (see Section 3.6.8.2 [Output
Section LMA], page 54).
MAX(exp1, exp2)
Returns the maximum of exp1 and exp2.
MIN(exp1, exp2)
Returns the minimum of exp1 and exp2.
NEXT(exp)
Return the next unallocated address that is a multiple of exp. This function is
closely related to ALIGN(exp); unless you use the MEMORY command to define
discontinuous memory for the output file, the two functions are equivalent.
ORIGIN(memory)
Return the origin of the memory region named memory.
SEGMENT_START(segment, default)
Return the base address of the named segment. If an explicit value has been
given for this segment (with a command-line ‘-T’ option) that value will be
returned; otherwise the value will be default. At present, the ‘-T’ command-
line option can only be used to set the base address for the “text”, “data”, and
“bss” sections, but you can use SEGMENT_START with any segment name.
SIZEOF(section)
Return the size in bytes of the named section, if that section has been allocated.
If the section has not been allocated when this is evaluated, the linker will report
an error. In the following example, symbol_1 and symbol_2 are assigned
identical values:

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SECTIONS{ ...
.output {
.start = . ;
...
.end = . ;
}
symbol_1 = .end - .start ;
symbol_2 = SIZEOF(.output);
... }

SIZEOF_HEADERS
sizeof_headers
Return the size in bytes of the output file’s headers. This is information which
appears at the start of the output file. You can use this number when setting
the start address of the first section, if you choose, to facilitate paging.
When producing an ELF output file, if the linker script uses the
SIZEOF_HEADERS builtin function, the linker must compute the number of
program headers before it has determined all the section addresses and
sizes. If the linker later discovers that it needs additional program headers,
it will report an error ‘not enough room for program headers’. To avoid
this error, you must avoid using the SIZEOF_HEADERS function, or you must
rework your linker script to avoid forcing the linker to use additional program
headers, or you must define the program headers yourself using the PHDRS
command (see Section 3.8 [PHDRS], page 60).

3.11 Implicit Linker Scripts

If you specify a linker input file which the linker can not recognize as an object file or an
archive file, it will try to read the file as a linker script. If the file can not be parsed as a linker
script, the linker will report an error.

An implicit linker script will not replace the default linker script.

Typically an implicit linker script would contain only symbol assignments, or the INPUT,
GROUP, or VERSION commands.

Any input files read because of an implicit linker script will be read at the position in the
command line where the implicit linker script was read. This can affect archive searching.

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 Chapter 4: ld and Xtensa Processors

4. ld and Xtensa Processors

The command for invoking the Xtensa version of ld is ‘xt-ld’.

Tensilica’s software development tools have introduced the concept of a linker support
package (LSP) to group the linker scripts and libraries for different environments. You can
specify an LSP using the compiler’s ‘-mlsp’ option, or if you invoke the linker directly you
can use the linker’s ‘--multilib-dir’ option. For each Xtensa processor configuration,
Tensilica’s Xtensa Processor Generator provides a set of predefined LSPs that include linker
scripts based on a default memory map. To customize the memory map, you can create
new LSPs. The xt-genldscripts tool simplifies the process of creating the linker scripts
for a new LSP. Please refer to the Xtensa Linker Support Packages (LSPs) Reference
Manual for more information about LSPs and memory maps.

The default ld behavior for Xtensa processors is to interpret SECTIONS commands so that
lists of explicitly named sections in a specification with a wildcard file will be interleaved
when necessary to keep literal pools within the range of PC-relative load offsets. For
example, with the command:

SECTIONS
{
.text : {
*(.literal .text)
}
}

ld may interleave some of the .literal and .text sections from different object files
to ensure that the literal pools are within the range of PC-relative load offsets. A valid
interleaving might place the .literal sections from an initial group of files followed by the
.text sections of that group of files. Then, the .literal sections from the rest of the
files and the .text sections from the rest of the files would follow.

Relaxation is enabled by default for the Xtensa version of ld and provides two important
link-time optimizations. The first optimization is to combine identical literal values to reduce
code size. A redundant literal will be removed and all the L32R instructions that use it will
be changed to reference an identical literal, as long as the location of the replacement literal
is within the offset range of all the L32R instructions. The second optimization is to remove
unnecessary overhead from assembler-generated “longcall” sequences of L32R/CALLXn
when the target functions are within range of direct CALLn instructions.

For each of these cases where an indirect call sequence can be optimized to a direct call,
the linker will change the CALLXn instruction to a CALLn instruction, remove the L32R
instruction, and remove the literal referenced by the L32R instruction if it is not used for
anything else. Removing the L32R instruction always reduces code size but can potentially
hurt performance by changing the alignment of subsequent branch targets. By default, the

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linker will always preserve alignments, either by switching some instructions between 24-bit
encodings and the equivalent density instructions or by inserting a no-op in place of the
L32R instruction that was removed. If code size is more important than performance, the
‘--size-opt’ option can be used to prevent the linker from widening density instructions
or inserting no-ops, except in a few cases where no-ops are required for correctness.

The following Xtensa-specific command-line options can be used to control the linker:

‘--size-opt’
When optimizing indirect calls to direct calls, optimize for code size more than
performance. With this option, the linker will not insert no-ops or widen density
instructions to preserve branch target alignment. There may still be some
cases where no-ops are required to preserve the correctness of the code.
‘--xtensa-core=name’
Specify the name of an Xtensa processor core configuration to use. The
configuration information is taken from the entry for name in the Xtensa core
registry (see the ‘--xtensa-system’ option). If this option is not specified,
the Xtensa core name is either the value of the ‘XTENSA_CORE’ environment
variable or “default” if that variable is not set.
‘--xtensa-system=registry’
Specify a directory to be used as the Xtensa core registry. If this option is not
set, the ‘XTENSA_SYSTEM’ environment variable specifies the Xtensa registry,
and if that is not set, the default registry, ‘<xtensa_tools_root>/config’,
is used. Please see the Xtensa Software Development Toolkit User’s Guide for
more information about Xtensa core registries.
‘--xtensa-params=path’
Specify the location of the parameter file in a TIE Development Kit (TDK) that
was produced by running the TIE Compiler (tc). If path identifies a direc-
tory rather than a file, the parameters are read from a file named ‘default-
params’ if it exists in that directory. The parameter file may also be specified by
setting the ‘XTENSA_PARAMS’ environment variable. The ‘--xtensa-params’
option takes precedence over the environment variable. See the Tensilica In-
struction Extension (TIE) Language User’s Guide for more information.
‘--xtensa-core=name’
Specify the name of an Xtensa processor core configuration to use. The
configuration information is taken from the entry for name in the Xtensa core
registry (see the ‘--xtensa-system’ option). If this option is not specified,
the Xtensa core name is either the value of the ‘XTENSA_CORE’ environment
variable or “default” if that variable is not set.
‘--xtensa-system=registry’
Specify a directory to be used as the Xtensa core registry. If this option is not
set, the ‘XTENSA_SYSTEM’ environment variable specifies the Xtensa registry,
and if that is not set, the default registry, ‘<xtensa_tools_root>/config’,

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is used. Please see the Xtensa Software Development Toolkit User’s Guide for
more information about Xtensa core registries.
‘--xtensa-params=path’
Specify the location of the parameter file in a TIE Development Kit (TDK) that
was produced by running the TIE Compiler (tc). If path identifies a direc-
tory rather than a file, the parameters are read from a file named ‘default-
params’ if it exists in that directory. The parameter file may also be specified by
setting the ‘XTENSA_PARAMS’ environment variable. The ‘--xtensa-params’
option takes precedence over the environment variable. See the Tensilica In-
struction Extension (TIE) Language User’s Guide for more information.

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80 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

Appendix A. GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.3, 3 November 2008

Copyright  2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
http://fsf.org/

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies

of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

0. PREAMBLE
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and use-
ful document free in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom
to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncom-
mercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get
credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by
others.
This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document
must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public
License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because
free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals
providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to
software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or
whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for
works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a
notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this
License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration,
to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The “Document”, below, refers to
any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed
as “you”. You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way
requiring permission under copyright law.
A “Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document or a
portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another
language.
A “Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document
that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document
to the Document’s overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could
fall directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a textbook of
mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship

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Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of
legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.
The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as
being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released
under this License. If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is
not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant
Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.
The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover
Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under
this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may
be at most 25 words.
A “Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented
in a format whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for
revising the document straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images com-
posed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing
editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a
variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise
Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to
thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. An image
format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that is not
“Transparent” is called “Opaque”.
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup,
Texinfo input format, LaTEX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD,
and standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modi-
fication. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque
formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word
processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally
available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word
processors for output purposes only.
The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following
pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the
title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, “Title Page”
means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work’s title, preceding the
beginning of the body of the text.
The “publisher” means any person or entity that distributes copies of the Document to
the public.
A section “Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose title either
is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in
another language. (Here XYZ stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such
as “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, “Endorsements”, or “History”.) To “Preserve
the Title” of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains a
section “Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that
this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to

82 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

be included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties:

any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no
effect on the meaning of this License.
2. VERBATIM COPYING
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or
noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license
notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and
that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use
technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies
you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies.
If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions
in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may
publicly display copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of
the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires
Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all
these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the
back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of
these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally
prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying
with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document
and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the
first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest
onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100,
you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque
copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the
general network-using public has access to download using public-standard network
protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If
you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin
distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will
remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time
you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that
edition to the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well
before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you
with an updated version of the Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of
sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely

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Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing
distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it.
In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the
Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any,
be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a
previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for
authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five
of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer
than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the
publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other
copyright notices.
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public
permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form
shown in the Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover
Texts given in the Document’s license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item
stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version
as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled “History” in the Document,
create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given
on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the
previous sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to
a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in
the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the
“History” section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at
least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version
it refers to gives permission.
K. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title
of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of
the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in
their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section
titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included
in the Modified Version.

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 Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title

with any Invariant Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as
Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at
your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their
titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license notice. These
titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but en-
dorsements of your Modified Version by various parties—for example, statements of
peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative
definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up
to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified
Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be
added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already
includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement
made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you
may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added
the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission
to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified
Version.
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License,
under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you
include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents,
unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license
notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical
Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant
Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section
unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or
publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment
to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined
work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various
original documents, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sec-
tions Entitled “Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must
delete all sections Entitled “Endorsements.”
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released
under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various

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Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow
the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other
respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually
under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted docu-
ment, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that
document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent
documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an
“aggregate” if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal
rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. When the
Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works
in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document,
then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover
Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the
electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they
must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of
the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with trans-
lations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include
translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these
Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license
notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include
the original English version of this License and the original versions of those notices
and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original
version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”,
the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing
the actual title.
9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly
provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or
distribute it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular
copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder
explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder
fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the
cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if
the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the

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 Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that
copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the
notice.
Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties
who have received copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have
been terminated and not permanently reinstated, receipt of a copy of some or all of the
same material does not give you any rights to use it.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free
Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to
the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document
specifies that a particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies
to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified
version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this
License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Document specifies that a proxy can decide which future
versions of this License can be used, that proxy’s public statement of acceptance of a
version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document.
11. RELICENSING
“Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or “MMC Site”) means any World Wide Web
server that publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for
anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such
a server. A “Massive Multiauthor Collaboration” (or “MMC”) contained in the site means
any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.
“CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license pub-
lished by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal
place of business in San Francisco, California, as well as future copyleft versions of
that license published by that same organization.
“Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of
another Document.
An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License, and if all works
that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and
subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or
invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.
The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-
BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible
for relicensing.

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Appendix A: GNU Free Documentation License

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the
document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:
Copyright (C) year your name.
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, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ‘‘GNU
Free Documentation License’’.

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the
“with. . . Texts.” line with this:
with the Invariant Sections being list their titles, with
the Front-Cover Texts being list, and with the Back-Cover Texts
being list.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three,
merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing

these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU
General Public License, to permit their use in free software.

88 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Appendix B: History

Appendix B. History

The original version of this document, entitled “Using LD, the GNU Linker”, later shortened
to just “The GNU Linker,” was written by Steve Chamberlain and Ian Lance Taylor. The
version for ld 2.20 was released in 2009 and published by the Free Software Foundation.

Tensilica, Inc. changed the title to “GNU Linker User’s Guide” and modified the document
to include features specific to Xtensa processors. The revised document was published by
Tensilica, Inc. on the date shown in the inside cover page. The TeXinfo source files for this
modified document are available from http://www.tensilica.com/gnudocs.

GNU Linker User’s Guide 89

Appendix B: History

90 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Appendix B: Index

Index

" --fatal-warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
--filter=name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
--force-dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--force-exe-suffix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
- --gc-sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
--gpsize=value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
-( . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
--hash-size=number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
--accept-unknown-input-arch . . . . . . . 16
--hash-style=style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
--add-needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
--help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
--allow-multiple-definition . . . . . . . 21
--just-symbols=file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--allow-shlib-undefined . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
--ld-generated-unwind-info . . . . . . . . . 28
--as-needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
--library-path=dir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
--audit AUDITLIB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
--auxiliary=name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 --library=namespec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--build-id . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 --multilib-dir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
--build-id=style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 --nmagic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
--check-sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 --no-accept-unknown-input-arch . . . 16
--copy-dt-needed-entries . . . . . . . . . . . 18 --no-add-needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
--cref. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 --no-allow-shlib-undefined . . . . . . . . . 21
--default-imported-symver . . . . . . . . . . 21 --no-as-needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
--default-script=script . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 --no-check-sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
--default-symver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 --no-copy-dt-needed-entries . . . . . . . 18
--defsym=symbol=exp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 --no-define-common . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
--demangle[=style] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 --no-demangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
--depaudit AUDITLIB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 --no-export-dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
--disable-new-dtags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 --no-fatal-warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
--discard-all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 --no-gc-sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
--discard-locals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 --no-keep-memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
--dynamic-linker=file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 --no-omagic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
--dynamic-list-cpp-new . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 --no-print-gc-sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
--dynamic-list-cpp-typeinfo . . . . . . . 18 –no-relax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--dynamic-list-data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 --no-undefined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
--dynamic-list=dynamic-list-file --no-undefined-version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 --no-warn-mismatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--eh-frame-hdr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 --no-warn-search-mismatch . . . . . . . . . . 22
--emit-relocs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 --no-whole-archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--enable-new-dtags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 --noinhibit-exec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--entry=entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 --omagic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
--error-unresolved-symbols . . . . . . . . . 27 --output=output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--exclude-libs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 --pic-executable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--exclude-modules-for-implib . . . . . . . 7 --print-gc-sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
--export-dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 --print-map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

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Appendix B: Index

--print-output-format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 -dy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
--reduce-memory-overheads . . . . . . . . . . 29 -E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
--relax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 -e entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
‘--relax’ on Xtensa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 -f name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
--relocatable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 -F name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
--retain-symbols-file=filename . . . 23 -fini=name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--script=script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 -g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--section-start=sectionname=org . . 24 -G value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--sort-common . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 -h name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--sort-section=alignment . . . . . . . . . . . 23 -i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--sort-section=name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 -Ifile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
--split-by-file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 -init=name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--split-by-reloc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 -L dir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
--stats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 -l namespec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--strip-all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 -M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
--strip-debug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 -m emulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
--sysroot=directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 -Map=mapfile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
--target-help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 -n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
--trace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 -N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
--trace-symbol=symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 -non_shared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
--traditional-format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 -nostdlib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--undefined=symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 -O level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--unique[=SECTION ] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
-o output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--unresolved-symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
-P AUDITLIB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
--verbose[=NUMBER] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
-pie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
-q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--version-script=version-scriptfile
-qmagic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
-Qy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
--warn-alternate-em . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
-r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--warn-common . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
--warn-constructors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 -R file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
--warn-multiple-gp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 -s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
--warn-once . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 -S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
--warn-section-align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 -shared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
--warn-shared-textrel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 -soname=name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
--warn-unresolved-symbols . . . . . . . . . . 27 -static . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
--whole-archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 -t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
--wrap=symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 -T script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
-a keyword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 -Tbss=org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
-assert keyword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 -Tdata=org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
-Bdynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 -Trodata-segment=org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
-Bgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 -Ttext-segment=org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
-Bshareable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 -Ttext=org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
-Bstatic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 -u symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
-Bsymbolic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 -Ur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
-Bsymbolic-functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 -v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
-call_shared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 -V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
-d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 -x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
-dc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 -X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
-dn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 -Y path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
-dp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 -y symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
-dT script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 -z defs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

92 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Appendix B: Index

-z keyword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 B
-z muldefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
BLOCK(exp) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
BYTE(expression) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 C
C++ constructors, arranging in link . . . . . . . . . . 51
/ COLLECT_NO_DEMANGLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
/DISCARD/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 combining symbols, warnings on . . . . . . . . . . . 25
command files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
: common allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 18
:phdr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 common allocation in linker script . . . . . . . . . . . 38
common symbol placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
COMMONPAGESIZE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
=
CONSTANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
=fillexp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 constants in linker scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
constraints on output sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
constructors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
>
CONSTRUCTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
>region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 constructors, arranging in link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
CREATE_OBJECT_SYMBOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
[ cross reference table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
cross references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
[COMMON] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
current output location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

A
D
absolute and relocatable symbols. . . . . . . . . . . 70
absolute expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
ABSOLUTE(exp) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 DATA_SEGMENT_ALIGN(maxpagesize,
ADDR(section) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 commonpagesize) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
address, section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 DATA_SEGMENT_END(exp) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
align expression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 DATA_SEGMENT_RELRO_END(offset, exp)
align location counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
ALIGN(align) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 dbx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
ALIGN(exp,align) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 default emulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
ALIGN(section_align) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 DEFINED(symbol) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
ALIGNOF(section) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 deleting local symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
allocating memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 demangling, default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
archive files, from cmd line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 demangling, from command line . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
archive search path in linker script . . . . . . . . . . 35 discarding sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 discontinuous memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
arithmetic operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 dot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
AS_NEEDED(files) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 dot inside sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
ASSERT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
dot outside sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
assertion in linker script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
dynamic linker, from command line . . . . . . . . . 19
assignment in scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
dynamic symbol table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
AT(lma) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
AT>lma_region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

GNU Linker User’s Guide 93

Appendix B: Index

E including a linker script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

ELF program headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 including an entire archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
emulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 incremental link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
emulation, default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 INHIBIT_COMMON_ALLOCATION . . . . . . . . . . 38
entry point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 initialization function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
entry point, from command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 initialized data in ROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
ENTRY(symbol) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 input filename symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
example of linker script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 input files in linker scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
expression evaluation order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 input files, displaying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
expression sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 input object files in linker scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
expression, absolute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 input section alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 input section basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
EXTERN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 input section wildcards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
input sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
INPUT(files) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
F INSERT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
file name wildcard patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 insert user script into default script . . . . . . . . . . 38
FILEHDR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 integer notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
filename symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 integer suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
fill pattern, entire section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
FILL(expression) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
finalization function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 K
first input file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 K and M integer suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
first instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 KEEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
FORCE_COMMON_ALLOCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
forcing input section alignment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
forcing output section alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 L
forcing the creation of dynamic sections . . . . 12
l = ........................................ 59
functions in expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
lazy evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
LD_FEATURE(string) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
G LDEMULATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
len =. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
garbage collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20, 50
LENGTH =. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
generating optimized output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
LENGTH(memory) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
GNU linker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
GROUP(files) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 library search path in linker script . . . . . . . . . . . 35
grouping input files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 link map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
groups of archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 linker script concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
linker script example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
linker script file commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
H linker script format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
header size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 linker script input object files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 linker script simple commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
HIDDEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 linker scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
holes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 load address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
holes, filling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 LOADADDR(section) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
loading, preventing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
local symbols, deleting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
I location counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
implicit linker scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 LONG(expression) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
INCLUDE filename . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

94 GNU Linker User’s Guide

 Appendix B: Index

M PHDRS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60, 61
M and K integer suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 position independent executables . . . . . . . . . . . 22
mapping input sections to output sections . . . 45 precedence in expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
MAX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 prevent unnecessary loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
MAXPAGESIZE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 program headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
MEMORY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 program headers and sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
memory region attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 program headers, not enough room . . . . . . . . . 75
memory regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 program segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
memory regions and sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 PROVIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
PROVIDE HIDDEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
memory usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
MIN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
multilib support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Q
QUAD(expression) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
N quoted symbol names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
name, section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 R
naming the output file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
read-only text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
NEXT(exp) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 read/write from cmd line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
NMAGIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 region alias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
NOCROSSREFS(sections) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 region names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
NOLOAD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 REGION_ALIAS(alias, region) . . . . . . . . 35
not enough room for program headers . . . . . . 75 regions of memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
relative expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
O relaxing addressing modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
relaxing on Xtensa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
o = . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 relocatable and absolute symbols. . . . . . . . . . . 70
object files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 relocatable output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
object size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 removing sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
OMAGIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 retain relocations in final executable . . . . . . . . 12
ONLY_IF_RO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 retaining specified symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
ONLY_IF_RW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 rodata segment origin, cmd line . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
operators for arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 ROM initialized data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 round up expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
org =. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 round up location counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
ORIGIN =. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 runtime library name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
ORIGIN(memory) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
orphan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
output file after errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 S
output file name in linker script . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 scaled integers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
output format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 scommon section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
output section alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 script files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
output section attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
output section data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 search directory, from cmd line . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
OUTPUT(filename) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 search path in linker script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
OVERLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 SEARCH_DIR(path) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
overlays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 section address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
section address in expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
section alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
P section alignment, warnings on . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
partial link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 section data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

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Appendix B: Index

section fill pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 symbols, retaining selectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

section load address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 synthesizing linker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
section load address in expression . . . . . . . . . 74
section name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
section name wildcard patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 T
section size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 text segment origin, cmd line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
section, assigning to memory region . . . . . . . . 55 traditional format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
section, assigning to program header . . . . . . . 56
SECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
sections, discarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 U
segment origins, cmd line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 unallocated address, next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
SEGMENT_START(segment, default) . . . 74 undefined symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
segments, ELF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 undefined symbol in linker script . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
shared libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 undefined symbols, warnings on . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
SHORT(expression) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 uninitialized data placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
SIZEOF(section) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 unspecified memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
SIZEOF_HEADERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
small common symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
SORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
SORT BY ALIGNMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 V
SORT BY INIT PRIORITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
variables, defining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
SORT BY NAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
verbose[=NUMBER] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
SORT NONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
SQUAD(expression) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
standard Unix system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 VERSION {script text} . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
start of execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 version script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
STARTUP(filename) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 version script, symbol versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
strip all symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 versions of symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
strip debugger symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
stripping all but some symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 W
SUBALIGN(subsection_align) . . . . . . . . . 55
suffixes for integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 warnings, on combining symbols . . . . . . . . . . . 25
symbol defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 warnings, on section alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
symbol definition, scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 warnings, on undefined symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
symbol names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 what is this?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
symbol tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 wildcard file name patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
symbol versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
symbol-only input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
symbolic constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 X
symbols, from command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Xtensa options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
symbols, relocatable and absolute . . . . . . . . . . 70 Xtensa processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

96 GNU Linker User’s Guide