This is the mail archive of the
binutils@sourceware.cygnus.com
mailing list for the binutils project.
Re: GNU ld and -init/-fini
- To: mark@codesourcery.com
- Subject: Re: GNU ld and -init/-fini
- From: Ian Lance Taylor <ian@zembu.com>
- Date: 22 Jun 1999 14:20:03 -0400
- CC: binutils@sourceware.cygnus.com
- References: <19990621160957T.mitchell@codesourcery.com>
From: mark@codesourcery.com
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:09:57 -0700
The IRIX 6 linker provdides -init and -fini switches. These switches
set DT_INIT and DT_FINI flags in the dynamic table, which cause the
named functions to be executed at initialization/finalization time.
GCC uses these to call global constructors when a shared library is
loaded.
There do not seem to be equivalent GNU ld switches. What is the
method used on Linux, etc. in order to make the same sort of thing
happen?
As Richard said, the GNU linker recognizes _init and _fini specially.
It sets DT_INIT to the value of the _init symbol, and sets DT_FINI to
the value of the _fini symbol. This convention was taken from SVR4,
and indeed it is required in order to work on SVR4 and Solaris.
I think it would be appropriate to add -init and -fini options to work
for any ELF target, and permit them to override the default of _init
and _fini.
Ian