Introduction

ild is an incremental version of the Link Editor ld, and replaces ld for linking programs. ild allows you to complete the development sequence (the edit, compile, link, and debug loop) efficiently and more quickly than by using a standard linker. You can avoid relinking entirely by using fix and continue. fix and continue (a part of dbx) allows you to work without relinking, but if you need to relink, the process can be faster if you use ild.

ild links incrementally so you can insert modified object code into an executable file that you created earlier, without relinking unmodified object files. The time required to relink depends upon the amount of code modified. Linking your application on every build does not require the same amount of time; small changes in code can be relinked very quickly.

On the initial link, ild requires about the same amount of time that ld requires, but subsequent ild links can be much faster than an ld link. The cost of the reduced link time is an increase in the size of the executable.