0

I am compiling a shared ELF library with GCC using -Wl,--version-script=version.script

MYLIB_1.0 {
    global:
        the_only_symbol_i_want;
    local:
        *;
};

This does as advertised; the_only_symbol_i_want is exported as a global symbol, but all the other symbols are local.

However I would also like to strip the local symbols. The man page for ld says you should use -Wl,--discard-all to do this. It's badly named - the docs say it actually discards all local symbols, not all symbols.

However this doesn't seem to actually do anything when combined with --version-script.

If I do strip --discard-all mylib.so then it does work, but I'd like to avoid having to run strip.

Is there any way to make ld do what I want? Does the version script not have a discard: option?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Is there any way to make ld do what I want?

Depends on which ld you use.

If this is GNU ld, then adding -Wl,--strip-all will result in complete removal of the symbol table (where all the local symbols appear), leaving only the dynamic symbol table (in which local symbols do not appear).

Improve this answer
1
  • When I wrote the question I didn't actually realise there were two symbols tables! So yeah the best option seems to be -Wl,--version-script and -Wl,--strip-all (though that's only for neatness really).
    – Timmmm
    Commented Jun 27, 2023 at 9:00

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.