Erik Leunissen <e.leunissen@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Regarding the "-l" command line option for the GNU linker, the manual
> page says:
The GNU linker is part of the binutils, and questions about it are
appropriately directed to binutils@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx See
http://sourceware.org/binutils/
> "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."
>
> I was wondering what "include the appropriate file(s)" exactly means
> in this context. Specifically, I would like to know which code from
> the archive is being *added* to the output file [*].
>
> - code for all symbols in the archive;
> - code for those object members in the archive which hold symbols that
> are still unresolved;
> - code for only those specific symbols that are still unresolved;
> - ... something else ?
For each symbol which is undefined when the linker sees the archive,
for which a definition is provided by the archive, the linker will
include the complete object file which defines the symbol. If
including an object file causes the linker to see new undefined
symbols, the linker will check to see whether those symbols are
defined in the archive, and for each such symbol will include the
object file which defines it. This process is repeated until there
are no new undefined symbols which can be satisfied by the archive.
Ian
