Dead-stripping unused code?

[Rick Mann <rmann at latencyzero dot com>]

So, I'm trying to bring in code from a large project (called "AFS") a  
little at a time. I started with a complete, working, non-trivial  
"hello world" project, and added the AFS sources into it. I then made  
a call to a single routine in the AFS code. This, of course,  
generated a linker error because I was not actually building and  
linking the AFS code yet.

So, I found the file, added it to the Makefile, and built again. It  
compiled, and as expected, issued more link errors. I expected to  
proceed in this fashion until I had brought in enough of the AFS code  
to allow that one call to work.

The problem is, it seems to complain about *all* the missing symbols,  
not just ones actually called (indirectly) from my code.

Is it possible to get gcc/ld to not try to link code referenced by  
uncalled functions? I tried using -Xlinker -dead-strip, but that  
appears to be an Apple extension not in binutils 2.18 (at least, I  
couldn't find it in the docs).

Basically, I want the linker not to complain about missing code  
that's never called, but I do want it to complain about missing code  
that *is* called. Is this possible?

TIA,

--
Rick