
Lld - the llvm linker - mpweiher
http://lld.llvm.org
======
ColinWright
When this was submitted 11 hours ago[0], amboar[1] commented[2]

    
    
        I found the design page[3] to be interesting reading
    

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157338)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=amboar](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=amboar)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157776)

[3] [http://lld.llvm.org/design.html](http://lld.llvm.org/design.html)

~~~
mpweiher
Submitter here: I actually couldn't imagine that this hadn't been submitted
before, but a couple of searches didn't turn up anything and the dup-detection
also didn't pipe up...no idea why.

~~~
ColinWright
No idea why the HN dup detector didn't work. This search finds it:

[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Allvm&s...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Allvm&sortby=create_ts+desc)

~~~
icebraining
_No idea why the HN dup detector didn 't work._

Inspecting the source, one of the links has a slash at the end and the other
doesn't.

~~~
ColinWright
Curious. That would explain the discrepancy, and indeed, when I look at the
source it is as you say. However, when I hover over the links they are
identical, including the slash at the end.

Most curious. It seems that FireFox lies.

------
octo_t
This is pretty much the last piece in the LLVM "puzzle", they've been relying
on the GNU linker up until recently, which has made some optimisations more
difficult to implement (notably whole program analysis targeting specific
architectures)

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fiatmoney
"It can currently self host on Linux x86-64 with -static."

Does that mean we can finally build true, 100% static binaries? I dream of
being able to scp-and-run on an arbitrary Linux machine.

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binarycrusader
To the developers: I'd strongly recommend reviewing the Solaris Linkers and
Libraries Guide in your quest to create a new linker:

[http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E26507/index.html](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E26507/index.html)

There are loads of generally useful technical details about ELF and linking in
general that apply to almost any UNIX-like platform.

For example, full details of the System V Application Binary Interface (ELF):

[http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E26507/glcfv.html#s...](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E26507/glcfv.html#scrolltoc)

Rod Evans and Ali Bahrami have decades of experience in this area and often
added new functionality to the Solaris linker long before the GNU folks ever
considered it.

Rod in particular has a very valuable set of posts with insight into linkers
and related vagaries on his blog:

[https://blogs.oracle.com/rie/](https://blogs.oracle.com/rie/)

The Solaris linker was made to deal with crazy things like 4GB+ executables,
multiple processor architectures, and hardware capabilities.

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oscargrouch
from the page:

"End-User Features: ... * Remove clang’s reliance on the system linker"

Very good news! full independency :) i was planning to embed clang in custom
c/c++ compiler tools but the lack of a full linker library was odd, and in
platforms where you dont know if theres a linker as in windows, it means you
would have to distribute a vc redistributable with it, and rely on executing a
batch operation for the linking process

Not to mention whatever optimizations that guys will be able to get their
hands into in the linking process.

Nice work!

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marssaxman
It still seems weirdly unix-centric to talk about "the system linker" as
though all systems include development tools as a matter of course. I'm glad
they are continuing to build all of the pieces they need for a truly
independent toolchain.

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Thev00d00
People are still using SVN for new stuff?

~~~
angersock
For certain workflows and types of software projects and teams, Subversion
performs admirably well.

There is a world outside of git.

(a world with the saddest, most rage-inducing branching model in existence,
but a world nonetheless)

~~~
dalke
I don't think it's worse than the models for SCCS, RCS, and CVS, which I used
in various projects before SVN. ;)

~~~
angersock
Well bless your kindly heart. :)

~~~
dalke
Thank you for sharing that. :)

