binutils-gdb

> Regarding --whole-archive, is it correct that it would be the default and you could opt-out of it with the function-sections/gc-sections combination? This is the current intention, as implemented in the up-to-date draft: https://github.com/bminor/binutils-gdb/commit/99aef6ba8db670.... Please note however that one would no longer need to specify the "--whole-archive" flag, hence resolving issues with potential duplicate placement of the static library in the linker's CLI. > Are there cases in which function-sections doesn't work (GCs too much) but a hypothetical "file-sections" does? For example cases in which the code relies on side effects of global constructors, but those would be left out by function-sections? Good question. In the first article in this series I discussed issues with global constructors and was pretty much waved away

I think it meant uppercase .C instead of lowercase .c as a C++ extension. Indeed it's pretty rare. That being said, there are indeed projects using lowercase .c extension for their "C++" file: gdb [1][2] [1] https://github.com/bminor/binutils-gdb/blob/3e5fac07975a310c... [2] https://github.com/bminor/binutils-gdb/blob/master/gdbsuppor...

Including the incredibly weird "bitmask immediate" for logical operations. It's so complicated that the assembler in binutils actually implements it by brute-forcing! https://github.com/bminor/binutils-gdb/blob/c40d7e49cf0a6842...