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- Next: <a href="Reporting-Bugs.html#Reporting-Bugs" accesskey="n" rel="next">Reporting Bugs</a>, Previous: <a href="Machine-Dependent.html#Machine-Dependent" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Machine Dependent</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="LD-Index.html#LD-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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- <a name="BFD-1"></a>
- <h2 class="chapter">5 BFD</h2>
- <a name="index-back-end"></a>
- <a name="index-object-file-management"></a>
- <a name="index-object-formats-available"></a>
- <a name="index-objdump-_002di"></a>
- <p>The linker accesses object and archive files using the BFD libraries.
- These libraries allow the linker to use the same routines to operate on
- object files whatever the object file format. A different object file
- format can be supported simply by creating a new BFD back end and adding
- it to the library. To conserve runtime memory, however, the linker and
- associated tools are usually configured to support only a subset of the
- object file formats available. You can use <code>objdump -i</code>
- (see <a href="http://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/binutils/objdump.html#objdump">objdump</a> in <cite>The GNU Binary Utilities</cite>) to
- list all the formats available for your configuration.
- </p>
- <a name="index-BFD-requirements"></a>
- <a name="index-requirements-for-BFD"></a>
- <p>As with most implementations, BFD is a compromise between
- several conflicting requirements. The major factor influencing
- BFD design was efficiency: any time used converting between
- formats is time which would not have been spent had BFD not
- been involved. This is partly offset by abstraction payback; since
- BFD simplifies applications and back ends, more time and care
- may be spent optimizing algorithms for a greater speed.
- </p>
- <p>One minor artifact of the BFD solution which you should bear in
- mind is the potential for information loss. There are two places where
- useful information can be lost using the BFD mechanism: during
- conversion and during output. See <a href="BFD-information-loss.html#BFD-information-loss">BFD information loss</a>.
- </p>
- <table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
- <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="BFD-outline.html#BFD-outline" accesskey="1">BFD outline</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top">How it works: an outline of BFD
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