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-rw-r--r--ld/ld.texinfo119
1 files changed, 117 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/ld/ld.texinfo b/ld/ld.texinfo
index 8d85f95..c7fd318 100644
--- a/ld/ld.texinfo
+++ b/ld/ld.texinfo
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@
@set C54X
@set V850
@set VAX
+@set WIN32
@end ifset
@c man end
@@ -145,6 +146,9 @@ section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
@ifset TICOFF
* TI COFF:: ld and the TI COFF
@end ifset
+@ifset WIN32
+* Win32:: ld and WIN32 (cygwin/mingw)
+@end ifset
@end ifclear
@ifclear SingleFormat
* BFD:: BFD
@@ -894,6 +898,18 @@ 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.
+@kindex --accept-unknown-input-format
+@kindex --no-accept-unknown-input-format
+@item --accept-unknown-input-format
+@itemx --no-accept-unknown-input-format
+Tells the linker to accept input files whoes format cannot be
+recognised. The assumption is that the user knows what they are doing
+and deliberately wants to link in these unknown format 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 @samp{--accept-unknown-input-format} option
+has been added to restore the old behaviour.
+
@kindex -assert @var{keyword}
@item -assert @var{keyword}
This option is ignored for SunOS compatibility.
@@ -1789,8 +1805,8 @@ uwin, pw, etc. For instance, cygwin DLLs typically use
@item --enable-auto-import
Do sophisticated linking of @code{_symbol} to @code{__imp__symbol} for
DATA imports from DLLs, and create the necessary thunking symbols when
-building the DLLs with those DATA exports. This generally will 'just
-work' -- but sometimes you may see this message:
+building the import libraries with those DATA exports. This generally
+will 'just work' -- but sometimes you may see this message:
"variable '<var>' can't be auto-imported. Please read the
documentation for ld's @code{--enable-auto-import} for details."
@@ -4380,6 +4396,9 @@ functionality are not listed.
@ifset TICOFF
* TI COFF:: @command{ld} and TI COFF
@end ifset
+@ifset WIN32
+* WIN32:: @command{ld} and WIN32 (cygwin/mingw)
+@end ifset
@end menu
@end ifset
@@ -4421,6 +4440,102 @@ top page of memory).
@end ifclear
@end ifset
+@ifset WIN32
+@ifclear GENERIC
+@raisesections
+@end ifclear
+
+@node WIN32
+@section @command{ld} and WIN32 (cygwin/mingw)
+
+This section describes some of the win32 specific @command{ld} issues.
+
+@table @emph
+@cindex import libraries
+@item import libraries
+The standard Windows linker creates and uses so called import
+libraries, which contains information for linking to dll's. They are
+regular static archives and could be handled as any other static
+archive. The cygwin and mingw ports of @command{ld} has specific
+support for creating such libraries provided with the
+@samp{--out-implib} command line option.
+
+@cindex automatic data imports
+@item automatic data imports
+The standard Windows dll format supports data imports from dlls only
+by adding special decorations (dllimport/dllexport), which lets the
+compiler produce specific assembler instructions to deal with this
+issue. This increase the needed porting efforts, especially for big
+c++ libraries and applications. The auto-import feature, which was
+initially provided by Paul Sokolovsky, allows this decoration to be
+skipped, archiving a behavior more like @command{ld} on other
+platforms. This feature is enabled with the @samp{--enable-auto-import}
+command line option.
+
+@cindex direct linking to a dll
+@item direct linking to a dll
+The cygwin/mingw ports of @command{ld} support the direct linking,
+including data symbols, to a dll without the usage of any import
+libraries. Using this feature can save a lot of linking time and
+memory, especially in case of bigger libraries or applications. This
+is because bigger libraries can have very large import libraries. (The
+author has seen import libraries about 10 MB size).
+
+Linking directly to a dll can done with the standard command line
+options @samp{-L} and @samp{-l}. This is because @command{ld} has
+built in support for several dll names, as shown below. In this list
+@samp{xxx} means the basic library name like "png" for the png
+library:
+
+@example
+libxxx.dll.a
+xxx.dll.a
+libxxx.a
+cygxxx.dll
+libxxx.dll
+xxx.dll
+@end example
+
+The generic cygwin/mingw path layout uses a @samp{bin} directory for
+applications and dll's and a @samp{lib} directory for the import
+libraries.
+
+@example
+bin/
+ cygxxx.dll
+lib/
+ libxxx.dll.a (in case of dll's)
+ libxxx.a (in case of static archive)
+@end example
+
+Linking to a dll can be done by two ways:
+
+1. Use the dll directly by adding the @samp{bin} path to the link line
+@example
+gcc -Wl,-verbose -o a.exe -L../bin/ -lxxx
+@end example
+
+2. Create a symbolic link from the dll to a file in the @samp{lib}
+directory according to the above mentioned search pattern. This
+should be used to avoid unwanted changes in the tools needed for
+making the app/dll.
+
+@example
+ln -s bin/cygxxx.dll lib/[cyg|lib|]xxx.dll[.a]
+@end example
+
+Then you can link without any make environment changes.
+
+@example
+gcc -Wl,-verbose -o a.exe -L../lib/ -lxxx
+@end example
+@end table
+
+@ifclear GENERIC
+@lowersections
+@end ifclear
+@end ifset
+
@ifclear GENERIC
@ifset Hitachi
@c This stuff is pointless to say unless you're especially concerned