This is a BETA release of a completely rewritten GNU linker.
It is distributed with other "binary utilities" which should
be in ../binutils. See ../binutils/README for more general notes,
including where to send bug reports.
There are many new features of the linker:
* The linker uses a Binary File Descriptor library (../bfd)
that it uses to read and write object files. This helps
insulate the linker itself from the format of object files.
* The linker support a number of different object file
formats. It can even handle multiple formats at once:
Read two input formats and write a third.
* The linker can be configured for cross-linking.
* The linker contains a control language.
* There is a user manual (ld.texinfo), as well as the
beginnings of an internals manual (ldint.texinfo).
Installation
============
See ../binutils/README.
If you want to make a cross-linker, you may want to specify
a different search path of -lfoo libraries than the default.
You can do this by setting the LIB_PATH variable in ./Makefile.
To build just the linker, make the target all-ld.
Porting to a new target
=======================
See the ldint.texinfo manual.
Reporting bugs etc
===========================
See ../binutils/README.
Known problems
==============
HP/UX 9.01 has a shell bug that causes the linker scripts to be
generated incorrectly. The symptom of this appears to be "fatal error
- scanner input buffer overflow" error messages. There are various
workarounds to this:
* Build and install bash, and build with "make SHELL=bash".
* Update to a version of HP/UX with a working shell (e.g., 9.05).
* Replace "(. ${srcdir}/scripttempl/${SCRIPT_NAME}.sc)" in
genscripts.sh with "sh ${srcdir}..." (no parens) and make sure the
emulparams script used exports any shell variables it sets.
295c0f16b9