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I would like to remove all unused symbols from my compiled C++ binary. I saw this, which gives an overview using gcc, which is the toolchain I'm using: C/C++ gcc & ld - remove unused symbols

However, on my system, the linking option (-Wl,--gc-sections) is rejected:

$ gcc -fdata-sections -ffunction-sections a.c -o a.o -Wl,--gc-sections
ld: fatal: unrecognized option '--'
ld: fatal: use the -z help option for usage information
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

I'm running on illumos, which is a (relatively) recent fork of Solaris, with GCC 4.7. Anybody know what the correct linker option to use here is?

Edit: searching the man pages more closely turned up "-zignore":

 -z ignore | record

     Ignores, or records, dynamic dependencies that  are  not
     referenced   as  part  of  the  link-edit.  Ignores,  or
     records, unreferenced ELF sections from the  relocatable
     objects  that  are  read  as  part  of the link-edit. By
     default, -z record is in effect.

     If an ELF section is ignored, the section is  eliminated
     from  the  output  file  being  generated.  A section is
     ignored when three conditions are true.  The  eliminated
     section  must  contribute to an allocatable segment. The
     eliminated section must provide no  global  symbols.  No
     other  section  from  any object that contributes to the
     link-edit, must reference an eliminated section.

However the following sequence still puts FUNCTION_SHOULD_BE_REMOVED in the ELF section .text.FUNCTION:

$ cat a.c
int main() {
    return 0;
$ cat b.c
    return 0;
$ gcc -fdata-sections -ffunction-sections -c a.c -Wl,-zignore
$ gcc -fdata-sections -ffunction-sections -c b.c -Wl,-zignore
$ gcc -fdata-sections -ffunction-sections a.o b.o -Wl,-zignore
$ elfdump -s a.out                     # I removed a lot of output for brevity
Symbol Table Section:  .dynsym
[2]  0x08050e72 0x0000000a  FUNC GLOB  D    1 .text.FUNCTION FUNCTION_SHOULD_BE_REMOVED
Symbol Table Section:  .symtab
[71]  0x08050e72 0x0000000a  FUNC GLOB  D    0 .text.FUNCTION FUNCTION_SHOULD_BE_REMOVED

Because the man pages say "no global symbols", I tried making the function "static" and that had the same end result.

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1 Answer 1

up vote 6 down vote accepted

The ld '-z ignore' option is positional, it applies to those input objects which occur after it on the command line. The example you gave:

gcc a.o b.o -Wl,-zignore

Applies the option to no objects -- so nothing is done.

gcc -Wl,-zignore a.o b.o

Should work

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