Re: [PATCH v3] gas: add --reloc-section-sym={all, internal, none} option for ELF
Project / Subsystem
binutils / gas
Date
2026-05-16
Proposer
Fangrui Song <i@maskray.me>
Source type
public_inbox
Consensus
Proposed
Sentiment
—/10
Technical tradeoffs
- • Adding a new command-line option increases the complexity of the assembler.
- • Converting local symbols to section symbols reduces the size of the symbol table, but can make debugging more difficult.
- • Preserving local symbols can increase the size of the symbol table, but can improve the debugging experience.
All attributes
- project
- binutils
- subsystem
- gas
- patch_id
- —
- discussion_id
- CAN30aBE8hRqOUoo5zPNkcnSuPxy5Ox1yL5NN4CeOLiUu3vmMtA@mail.gmail.com
- source_type
- public_inbox
- title
- Re: [PATCH v3] gas: add --reloc-section-sym={all, internal, none} option for ELF
- headline
- gas: Add --reloc-section-sym={all, internal, none} option for ELF
- tldr
- Introduces --reloc-section-sym option to control conversion of local symbols to section symbols in ELF relocations, aiding debugging and tooling.
- proposer
- Fangrui Song <i@maskray.me>
- consensus
- Proposed
- outcome
- proposed
- sentiment_score
- —
- technical_tradeoffs
-
- • Adding a new command-line option increases the complexity of the assembler.
- • Converting local symbols to section symbols reduces the size of the symbol table, but can make debugging more difficult.
- • Preserving local symbols can increase the size of the symbol table, but can improve the debugging experience.
- series_id
- —
- series_role
- reply
- series_parts
- []
- tags
-
- • gas
- • assembler
- • ELF
- • relocation
- • symbol
- bugzilla_url
- —
- date
- 2026-05-16T00:00:00.000Z
Re: [PATCH v3] gas: add --reloc-section-sym={all, internal, none} option for ELF
This patch introduces the --reloc-section-sym option to the GNU assembler (gas) for ELF files. This option controls how local symbols are converted to section symbols during relocation. The change intends to help with debugging and support tools that rely on preserved symbol names.