Re: as/ld silently creates programs with undefined references/symbols

[Richard Earnshaw]

On Mon, 2004-07-12 at 09:26, Russell King wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 09:24:02AM +0100, Richard Earnshaw wrote:
> > I think this is a bad idea: mapping symbols are there for a reason. 
> > They are absolutely essential in the process of creating be-8 format
> > images.  And they have other potential uses as well (accurate
> > disassembly of code, for example).
> > 
> > The time to remove them is after linking.  If you want a flag, make it a
> > strip or objcopy option.
> 
> Richard,
> 
> Please look again at my bug report and consider the effect they have
> on the linkers ability to produce understandable error messages.
> They directly impact the usability of the toolchain.

The linker needs fixing to not use mapping symbols in error reports. 
The assembler shouldn't be changed to not produce them.

Actually, it's the bfd that needs fixing to split the mapping symbols
out from the table of values it presents to the rest of the toolchain. 
Then other tools would work correctly as well.  A separate interface can
then be used to get the map.

R.