The link-editor is provided as a 32–bit application and a 64–bit application. Each link-editor can operate on 32–bit objects and 64–bit objects. However, a link-edit can not contain a mix of 32–bit objects and 64–bit objects. Although a 32–bit link-editor can generate a 64–bit object, the size of the generated object, not including the .bss, is restricted to 2 Gbytes.
By default, the compiler drivers execute the 32–bit link-editor. This link-editor inspects the command line to determine whether the 64–bit link-editor should be executed to complete the link-edit.
Typically, no command line option is required to distinguish a 32–bit link-edit or 64–bit link-edit. The link-editor uses the ELF class of the first relocatable object on the command line to govern the mode in which to operate. Specialized link-edits, such as linking solely from a mapfile or an archive library, are uninfluenced by the command line object. These link-edits default to a 32–bit mode, and require a command line option to instigate a 64–bit link-edit.
The 64–bit link-editor is executed under one of the following conditions.
The first relocatable object on the command line is 64–bit.
The creation of very large 32–bit objects can exhaust the virtual memory that is available to the 32–bit link-editor. The -z altexec64 option can be used to force the use of the associated 64–bit link-editor. The 64–bit link-editor provides a larger virtual address space for building 32–bit objects.
The LD_ALTEXEC environment variable can also be used to specify an alternative link-editor.