[PATCH 0/3] PE-COFF: Fix weak external symbol resolution bugs
Project / Subsystem
binutils / pe-coff
Date
2026-05-30
Proposer
Peter Damianov <peter0x44@disroot.org>
Source type
public_inbox
Consensus
Proposed
Sentiment
—/10
Technical tradeoffs
- • Increased code complexity in the linker vs. correct handling of weak externals.
- • Increased testsuite maintenance vs. improved confidence in linker correctness.
All attributes
- project
- binutils
- subsystem
- pe-coff
- patch_id
- —
- discussion_id
- 20260530191522.57144-1-peter0x44@disroot.org
- source_type
- public_inbox
- title
- [PATCH 0/3] PE-COFF: Fix weak external symbol resolution bugs
- headline
- PE-COFF: Fix weak external symbol resolution bugs
- tldr
- This series fixes two bugs related to PE COFF weak external symbol resolution in the BFD linker and adds testsuite coverage.
- proposer
- Peter Damianov <peter0x44@disroot.org>
- consensus
- Proposed
- outcome
- proposed
- sentiment_score
- —
- technical_tradeoffs
-
- • Increased code complexity in the linker vs. correct handling of weak externals.
- • Increased testsuite maintenance vs. improved confidence in linker correctness.
- series_id
- binutils:pe-coff: fix weak external symbol resolution bugs
- series_role
- cover
- series_parts
- []
- tags
-
- • PE-COFF
- • linker
- • weak symbols
- • symbol resolution
- • bfd
- bugzilla_url
- —
- date
- 2026-05-30T00:00:00.000Z
[PATCH 0/3] PE-COFF: Fix weak external symbol resolution bugs
This patch series addresses two bugs in the BFD linker related to PE COFF weak external symbol resolution. The first patch fixes an issue where the linker loses the weak symbol’s aux record and fails to resolve the fallback alias when a strong undefined reference is seen first. The second patch corrects the handling of two weak externals for the same symbol, ensuring the linker prefers a real definition over NULL. The series also includes a new test suite covering a wide range of weak/strong symbol interactions.