New Features

This section gives an overview of new features and/or updates that have been added to this document and to which release they were added:

Solaris7 release:

• The 64-bit ELF object format is now supported. See "File Format".

• Shared objects can be built with optimized relocation sections with the addition of the -z combreloc option. See "Combined Relocation Sections".

• Greater flexibility in establishing dependencies within unbundled software is provided with the new $ORIGIN dynamic string token. See "Dynamic String Tokens".

• The loading of a shared object can now be deferred until the object is actually referenced by the running program. See "Lazy Loading of Dynamic Dependencies".

• SHT_SUNW_COMDAT section has been added to allow for the elimination of multiply defined symbols. See "COMDAT section".

• SHT_SUNW_MOVE section have been added to allow for the partially initialized symbols. "COMDAT section".

• The following new runtime link auditing entry points la_symbind64(), la_sparcv9_pltenter() and la_pltexit64(), as well as the new link-auditing flag LA_SYMB_ALTVALUE have been added. See "Audit Interface Functions".

Solaris2.6 release:

• Weak symbol references can trigger archive member extraction by using the link-editor -z weakextract option. Extracting all archive members can be achieved using the -z allextract option. See "Archive Processing".

• Shared objects specified as part of a link-edit that are not referenced by the object being built can be ignored, and hence their dependency recording suppressed, using the -z ignore option. See "Shared Object Processing".

• The link-editor generates the reserved symbols _START_ and _END_ to provide a means of establishing an objects address range. See "Generating the Output Image".

• Changes have been made to the runtime ordering of initialization and finalization code to better accommodate dependency requirements. See "Initialization and Termination Routines".

• Symbol resolution semantics have been expanded for dlopen(3X). See "Symbol Lookup", RTLD_GROUP in "Isolating a Group", and RTLD_PARENT in "Object Hierarchies".

• Symbol lookup semantics have been expanded with a new dlsym(3X) handle RTLD_DEFAULT. See "Obtaining New Symbols".

• Extensions have been made to filter processing that allow more than one filtee to be defined, and provide for forcibly loading filtees. An example of creating a platform specific filter is also provided. See "Shared Objects as Filters".

• Recording additional version dependencies can be achieved using the mapfile file control directive $ADDVERS. See "Binding to Additional Version Definitions".

• A runtime linker audit interface provides support for monitoring and modifying a dynamically linked application from within the process. See "Runtime Linker Auditing Interface".

• A runtime linker debugger interface provides support for monitoring and modifying a dynamically linked application from an external process. See "Runtime Linker Debugger Interface".

• Additional section types are supported. See Table 7-11 for SHN_BEFORE and SHN_AFTER, and see Table 7-14 for SHF_ORDERED and SHF_EXCLUDE.

• A new dynamic section tag, DT_1_FLAGS, is supported. See Table 7-42 for the various flag values.

• A package of demonstration ELF programs is provided. See Chapter 7, Object Files.

• The link-editors now support internationalized messages. All system errors are reported using strerror(3C).