WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2026
binutils — Proposed
Remove TRUNCATE support from MRI ld scripts
Removes undocumented and unimplemented TRUNCATE support from binutils MRI linker scripts.
This patch removes the TRUNCATE keyword from binutils’ MRI linker scripts. The keyword, which appeared in 1993, was never implemented and is undocumented. Its removal cleans up the parser and avoids confusion for users.
In Details
This patch removes the TRUNCATE token from the GNU ld parser for MRI (Machine Readable Information) scripts. The TRUNCATE keyword, along with its associated functionality in mri.c and ldgram.y, was introduced in 1993 but never implemented and remains undocumented. Its removal simplifies the linker script grammar and code.
For Context
- MRI ld scripts
- Linker scripts in Machine Readable Information format, used by the GNU linker (
ld) to control the memory layout of output files. - TRUNCATE
- A keyword that was present in the MRI linker script syntax but was never implemented. Its intended purpose is unclear but might have related to limiting symbol sizes.
- linker script
- A file that specifies how the linker should arrange code and data sections in the output executable or library.
- parser
- A component of a compiler or interpreter that analyzes a stream of tokens (from lexing) to determine the grammatical structure of the input.