lld 21.0.0git Release Notes

Warning

These are in-progress notes for the upcoming LLVM 21.0.0git release. Release notes for previous releases can be found on the Download Page.

Introduction

This document contains the release notes for the lld linker, release 21.0.0git. Here we describe the status of lld, including major improvements from the previous release. All lld releases may be downloaded from the LLVM releases web site.

Non-comprehensive list of changes in this release

ELF Improvements

• For AArch64, added support for -zgcs-report-dynamic, enabling checks for GNU GCS Attribute Flags in Dynamic Objects when GCS is enabled. Inherits value from -zgcs-report (capped at warning level) unless user-defined, ensuring compatibility with GNU ld linker.

• The default Hexagon architecture version in ELF object files produced by lld is changed to v68. This change is only effective when the version is not provided in the command line by the user and cannot be inferred from inputs.

• --why-live=<glob> prints for each symbol matching <glob> a chain of items that kept it live during garbage collection. This is inspired by the Mach-O LLD feature of the same name.

• Linker script OVERLAY descriptions now support virtual memory regions (e.g. >region) and NOCROSSREFS.

Breaking changes

COFF Improvements

MinGW Improvements

MachO Improvements

WebAssembly Improvements

Fixes