lld 14.0.0 Release Notes

Introduction

This document contains the release notes for the lld linker, release 14.0.0. Here we describe the status of lld, including major improvements from the previous release. All lld releases may be downloaded from the LLVM releases web site.

Non-comprehensive list of changes in this release

ELF Improvements

  • --export-dynamic-symbol-list has been added. (D107317)

  • --why-extract has been added to query why archive members/lazy object files are extracted. (D109572)

  • If -Map is specified, --cref will be printed to the specified file. (D114663)

  • -z bti-report and -z cet-report are now supported. (D113901)

  • --lto-pgo-warn-mismatch has been added. (D104431)

  • Archives without an index (symbol table) are now supported and work with --warn-backrefs. One may build such an archive with llvm-ar rcS [--thin] to save space. (D117284) The archive index may be entirely ignored in a future release.

  • No longer deduplicate local symbol names at the default optimization level of -O1. This results in a larger .strtab (usually less than 1%) but a faster link time. Use optimization level -O2 to restore the deduplication. The -O2 deduplication may be dropped in the future to help parallel .symtab write.

  • In relocatable output, relocations to discarded symbols now use tombstone values. (D116946)

  • Orphan section placement now picks a more suitable segment. Previously the algorithm might pick a readonly segment for a writable orphan section and make the segment writable. (D111717)

  • An empty output section moved by an INSERT comment now gets appropriate flags. (D118529)

  • Negation in a memory region attribute is now correctly handled. (D113771)

  • --compress-debug-sections=zlib is now run in parallel. {clang,gcc} -gz link actions are significantly faster. (D117853)

  • “relocation out of range” diagnostics and a few uncommon diagnostics now report an object file location beside a source file location. (D112518)

  • The write of .rela.dyn and SHF_MERGE|SHF_STRINGS sections (e.g. .debug_str) is now run in parallel.

Architecture specific changes:

  • The AArch64 port now supports adrp+ldr and adrp+add optimizations. --no-relax can suppress the optimization. (D112063) (D117614)

  • The x86-32 port now supports TLSDESC (-mtls-dialect=gnu2). (D112582)

  • The x86-64 port now handles non-RAX/non-adjacent R_X86_64_GOTPC32_TLSDESC and R_X86_64_TLSDESC_CALL (-mtls-dialect=gnu2). (D114416)

  • The x86-32 and x86-64 ports now support mixed TLSDESC and TLS GD, i.e. mixing objects compiled with and without -mtls-dialect=gnu2 referencing the same TLS variable is now supported. (D114416)

  • For x86-64, --no-relax now suppresses R_X86_64_GOTPCRELX and R_X86_64_REX_GOTPCRELX GOT optimization (D113615)

  • R_X86_64_PLTOFF64 is now supported. (D112386)

  • R_AARCH64_NONE, R_PPC_NONE, and R_PPC64_NONE in input REL relocation sections are now supported.

Breaking changes

  • e_entry no longer falls back to the address of .text if the entry symbol does not exist. Instead, a value of 0 will be written. (D110014)

  • --lto-pseudo-probe-for-profiling has been removed. In LTO, the compiler enables this feature automatically. (D110209)

  • Use of --[no-]define-common, -d, -dc, and -dp will now get a warning. They will be removed or ignored in 15.0.0. (llvm-project#53660)

COFF Improvements

  • Correctly handle a signed immediate offset in ARM64 adr/adrp relocations. (D114347)

  • Omit section and label symbols from the symbol table. (D113866)

MinGW Improvements

Mach-O Improvements

  • The ld64.lld.darwinnew symlink has been removed. Use ld64.lld to invoke the Mach-O backend from now on. Moreover, the symlink ld64.lld.darwinold – and the old Mach-O LLD code that it pointed to – have been removed. (D114842)

  • The “cannot export hidden symbol” error has been downgraded to a warning. (D107011)

  • Common bitcode symbols are now supported. (D107027)

  • Weak references in bitcode are now supported. (D115949)

  • Thunk insertion now works more reliably. (D108897, D108924, D109079, D116705)

  • -ObjC now loads archive members before the symbol resolution phase. (D108781)

  • -oso_prefix is now supported. (D112291)

  • Properly encode binaries with zero exported symbols. Tools like codesign_allocate no longer choke on those binaries. (D112589)

  • We no longer treat architecture mismatches as a fatal error. Use -arch_errors_fatal if that behavior is still desired. (D113082)

  • Several performance improvements were done to speed LLD up on projects with a lot of framework flags and library lookups. Large Swift-based projects will benefit significantly. (D113073, D113063, D113153, D113235)

  • Several memory-reduction optimizations were done to reduce LLD’s RSS footprint. (D113813, D113818)

  • Symbol patterns from -[un]exported_symbols_list are now processed in parallel. (D113820)

  • .weak_def_can_be_hidden symbols can now be exported. (D113167)

  • -S – to omit debug info – is now handled. (D112594)

  • -v now writes to stderr instead of stdout. (D113020)

  • Private externs with GOT relocations are now marked as LOCAL in the indirect symbol table. This allows strip -x to remove more symbols. (D111852)

  • We no longer generate bogus addresses when __TEXT,__gcc_except_tab is renamed. (D113582)

  • Unreferenced weak dylib symbols no longer trigger fetches from an archive. (D115092)

  • $ld$hide symbols are now supported. (D115775)

  • Symbols imported via -weak_framework are now properly marked as weak refs. (D114397)

  • --warn-dylib-install-name and --no-warn-dylib-install-name were added to toggle LLD-specific warnings around the use of -install_name. (D113534)

  • Passing both --icf=all and -no_deduplicate no longer results in a warning. (D110672)

  • ICF now deduplicates functions with (identical) unwind info too. (D109946)

  • We now support ordering sections based on call graph profile data. (D112164)

  • Map file output now proceeds in parallel with output of the binary. (D117069)

  • The map file now contains dead-stripped symbols too. (D114737)

  • Multiple TLV sections with different alignments are now handled properly. (D116263)

  • --start-lib and --end-lib are now supported. (D116913)

  • -noall_load is now supported. (D117629)

  • -add_empty_section is now supported. (D117749)