@ifinfo
This file documents the @sc{gnu} linker LD version @value{VERSION}.
-Copyright (C) 1991, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Copyright (C) 1991, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
@samp{--oformat=srec} 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
+(eg @samp{gcc}) then all the linker command line options should be
+prefixed by @samp{-Wl,} like this:
+
+@smallexample
+ gcc -Wl,--startgroup foo.o bar.o -Wl,--endgroup
+@end smallexample
+
+This is important, because otherwise the compiler driver program may
+silently drop the linker options, resulting in a bad link.
+
+Here is a table of the generic command line switches accepted by the GNU
+linker:
+
@table @code
@kindex -a@var{keyword}
@item -a@var{keyword}
exported.
@kindex --exclude-symbols
-@item --exclude-symbols @var{symbol,symbol,...}
+@item --exclude-symbols @var{symbol},@var{symbol},...
Specifies a list of symbols which should not be automatically
exported. The symbol names may be delimited by commas or colons.
*(.text)
@end smallexample
@noindent
-Here the @samp{*} is a wildcard which matches any file name. To exclude a file
-from matching the file name wildcard, EXCLUDE_FILE may be used to match all files
-except the one specified by EXCLUDE_FILE. For example:
+Here the @samp{*} 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:
@smallexample
-(*(EXCLUDE_FILE (*crtend.o) .ctors))
+(*(EXCLUDE_FILE (*crtend.o, *otherfile.o) .ctors))
@end smallexample
-will cause all .ctors sections from all files except crtend.o to be included.
+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:
@smallexample