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
==============

The Solaris linker normally exports all dynamic symbols from an
executable.  The GNU linker does not do this by default.  This is
because the GNU linker tries to present the same interface for all
similar targets (in this case, all native ELF targets).  This does not
matter for normal programs, but it can make a difference for programs
which try to dlopen an executable, such as PERL or Tcl.  You can make
the GNU linker export all dynamic symbols with the -E or
--export-dynamic command line option.

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.
