0.8.0

To see how the performance of this release compares with previous releases, see the benchmarks page.

🚀 Features

• Support --hash-style={sysv, both} (#1281)
• Support negation ('^') in version script globs (#1284)
• Support PT_GNU_PROPERTY (#1297)
• Support --defsym=symbol=expression (#1300)
• Support symbol definitions in linker script (#1307)
• Support merging non-string sections (#1306)
• Handle -z x86-64-* ISA needed (#1320)
• Ignore --discard-all/-x option (#1377)
• Support SFrame (#1287)
• Support --section-start=.section=address (#1385)
• Add --no-update-in-place flag (#1395)
• Support -z max-page-size (#1400)
• LoongArch64 support (#1409)
• Support expressions in --defsym and linker script symbol assignment (#1418)
• Sort .init_array and .fini_array by priority (#1408)
• Support --no-eh-frame-hdr (#1440)
• Support -z stack-size=SIZE (#1448)
• Include metrics connected to '.eh_frame' (#1443)
• Add --pic-executable as an alias for --pie (#1453)
• Support variant_pcs (#1272)
• Support .variant_cc (#1280)

⚡ Performance

• Make --update-in-place default and fallback to unlinking on ETXTBSY (#1238)
• Parallelize copying data sections (#1277)
• Avoid heap allocating each task during string merging (#1286)
• Minor improvement to cache efficiency of resolution (#1294)
• Merge some of the GC phases into a single phase (#1330)
• Process merge-string sections in mostly equal chunks (#1345)
• Run string merging and GC in parallel (#1339)
• Preallocate a Vec to avoid resizes (#1349)
• Optimize version script from rustc (#1355)
• Tweak how we determine the target number of groups (#1432)

🪲 Bug Fixes

• Ensure we write every byte of file even when updating in-place (#1276)
• Align output kind with LD in more cases (#1279)
• Don't try to emit copy relocations for non-canonical symbol aliases (#1308)
• Put common TLS symbols into correct section (#1310)
• Handle non-absolute paths with --no-allow-shlib-undefined (#1321)
• Do not add duplicated rpath entries (#1338)
• save_dir::make_relative_path() now works as expected (#1337)
• Reorder some sections so that objcopy doesn't complain (#1358)
• (save-dir) Handle @filename when processing save-dir (#1362)
• Use DT_SONAME to help determine if SO deps are met (#1390)
• (save-dir) Don't make paths in linker scripts relative if in sysroot (#1393)
• Relax debug info comparison against bfd (#1397)
• Don't exclude all libs when not yet supported --exclude-libs is passed (#1394)
• Properly resolve and retain defsym target symbols (#1402)
• (save-dir) Normalize source paths before checking if it's in sysroot (#1406)
• Resolve __real_foo in --wrap even without __wrap_foo (#1419)
• (CREL) Reduce allocation for non-EH relocations (#1426)
• Don't try to copy CREL sections to output file (#1438)
• Ifunc address equality for data section references (#1441)
• Ifunc address equality for GOT-relative relocations (#1446)

📚 Documentation

• Improve building and benching docs for rustc (#1283)
• Add some info about our monthly dev team meetings (#1291)
• Update rustc building instructions & format all the rustflags consistently (#1324)
• Add alternative Clang invocation (#1334)
• Add instructions for using wild with clang and gcc (#1354)
• Add PACKAGING.md instructions (#1342)
• Improve instructions on checking if wild was actually used (#1316)

🎨 Styling

• Wrap comments at 100 characters (#1268)

📦 Packaging

• Update for inclusion in Nixpkgs (#1318)

🛠️ Dev tooling

• Make absolute address checking work correctly (#1417)
• Add support for writing perfetto traces (#1323)
• Add a tool to aid with running benchmarks (#1454)
• Add Dockerfile for Gentoo (#1373)

⚖️ Linker Diff

• Ignore VER_NDX_LOCAL vs GLOBAL for undefined symbols (#1424)
• LoongArch64 support (#1428)

🧪 Testing

• Make a test failure message less confusing (#1275)
• Set timeout-minutes for CI jobs (#1301)
• Add a test for backtraces (#1353)
• Use a separate subdirectory for each tests build (#1404)
• Drop ubuntu 25.04 (#1433)
• Improve robustness of integration-test usage of run-with (#1437)
• Add cache for a couple of build jobs (#1434)
• Use separate archive sources for a couple of tests (#1401)
• Move contents of exit.c to runtime.c (#1447)
• Add a test for -Bsymbolic-non-weak (#1427)
• Use rust-cache actions (#1444)
• Introduce WILD_TEST_CROSS=all (#1425)
• Introduce SkipArch integration test directive (#1415)
• Include next upcoming LTS Ubuntu release (#1416)
• Run loongarch64 external tests (#1421)

🔨 Refactor

• A few simplifications to sysvs .hash computations (#1282)
• Change resolution to use a work queue (#1290)
• Make timing annotations use tracing indirectly (#1295)
• Make secondary output sections more flexible (#1312)
• Decouple OutputKind from Args (#1293)
• Preparations to run string merging in parallel with GC (#1329)
• Change GC to use a channel for work control (#1331)
• Change GC phase to use rayon scopes (#1344)
• Rewrite input opening work control (#1348)
• Change symbol resolution to use rayon scopes (#1363)
• Have linker script emit symbol defs directly (#1364)
• Work towards being able to load additional batches of files (#1365)
• Separate Epilogue into two separate entities (#1367)
• Move dynamic symbol definitions onto layout (#1368)
• Move gnu property notes to the layout (#1369)
• Move riscv attributes to the layout (#1370)
• Move eflags out of the prelude (#1371)
• Get rid of SymbolDb::num_symbols_per_group (#1372)
• Allow SymbolDb to be built in stages (#1374)
• Allow symbol resolution to be done in stages (#1375)
• Parse files as we open them (#1380)
• Make InputRef implement Copy (#1382)
• Get rid of InputFile::kind (#1383)
• Split ResolvedObject into dynamic and non-dynamic variants (#1389)
• Drop fd-lock dev dependency (#1319)
• Port linked-diff table to tabled crate (#1361)

👥 Contributors

• davidlattimore
• lapla-cogito
• marxin
• mati865
• karolzwolak
• RossSmyth
• YamasouA
• csfore
• zyxhere
• tshepang
• TechnoPorg

💲 Sponsors

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored davidlattimore, in particular the following people who have sponsored at least $30 since the last release:

• aws
• wasmerio
• repi
• CodeursenLiberte
• mati865
• Urgau
• marxin
• +48 others

0.7.0

Only 6 weeks since our last release, but the team still got a lot done! We've split changes into separate sections this time, so hopefully it's a bit easier to read.

🚀 Features

• Add handling of the .symver asm directives (#994)
• Allow absolute-value symbol to be used as an entry point
• Allow setting entry point for shared objects
• Reintroduce handling of tail-merged strings (#1117)
• Implement --retain-symbols-file (#1262)
• Allow mixing of argument files and regular arguments (#1148)
• Support VERSION command in linker script
• Ignore '-no-fatal-warnings' option (#1192)
• Increase maximal supported alignment to 2^16 (#1190)
• Include git commit in linker version (#1203)
• Add support for .note.stapsdt sections (#1202)
• Check for overflow on 32bit relocations (#1175)
• Support tokens enclosed in double quotes in linker scripts
• Support flag --no-mmap-output-file (#1215)

⚡ Performance

• Limit default parallelism in string merging
• Rewrite scheduling of string merging tasks (#1240)

🪲 Bug Fixes

• Fill some bytes with zeros (affects --update-in-place) (#1237)
• Improve handling of non-absolute paths in save-dir (#1244)
• Pad copy relocations according to alignment (#1251)
• Don't allow hidden/protected symbols to reference shared objects (#1258)
• Use local symbol interposability when processing relocations (#1259)
• Make --strip-debug suppress earlier --strip-all (#1261)
• Fix compilation on riscv (#1100)
• Distinguish default version (@@) from non-default (@). (#1129)
• Only emit PT_INTERP for shared executables
• Add RISCV_ATTRIBUTE program segment (#1166)
• Don't create GOT/PLT entries for ifuncs that aren't referenced (#1185)
• Improve handling of relocations in non-alloc sections (#1196)
• Fix lookup of the riscv-fix-hi-part (#1198)
• Make --warn-unresolved-symbols match GNU ld's behaviour (#1217)
• Handle missing GNU_PROPERTY .note.gnu.property values (#1222)
• Allow dynamic symbols to refer to merged strings (#1147)

🏗️ Builds

• Build for (aarch|x86_|riscv)64(|gc)-unknown-linux-(musl|gnu) (#1151)
• Link musl releases with Wild

📚 Documentation

• Move nix docs to a separate file and update supported features list (#1113)
• Remove archive_splitter.rs reference from DESIGN.md (#1145)
• Update benchmarks, this time with bar charts
• Add instructions for using Wild with Rust on Illumos. (#1171)
• Document crate dependency version policy (#1140)
• Customise git-cliff config and document commit message format (#1267)

🕹️ Porting

• Initial support for Illumos (#1197)

⚖️ Linker Diff

• Add support for RISC-V (#920)
• Ensure all columns in tables have same width (#1247)

🧪 Testing

• Use wild for build in CI (#1091)
• Verify build on riscv (#1101)
• Verify minimal versions in CI (#1142)
• Ignore some diffs in risc-v tests (#1236)
• Use test-config-ci.toml in CI (#1234)
• Report sections where --update-in-place misses writes (#1239)
• Set the TRIPLE environment variable if needed when running mold tests
• Fix potential template-injection in CI
• Fix a couple of tests that were failing on recent opensuse (#1241)
• Don't skip running dynamically linked executables (#1248)
• Apt-get update before installing for riscv build workflow (#1255)
• Prevent race between test cases re-creating the same .so file (#1107)
• Use depfile in integrationtests (#1123)
• Use correct exit syscall number on Illumos (#1138)
• Look for dynamic linker in /bin/less in integ test (#1159)
• Unignore symbol-versions3.sh Mold test
• Make integration test diffing an opt-in feature (#1158)
• Integration tests: Make symbol assertions more extensible (#1169)
• Better error message when test unexpectedly pasess (#1176)
• Print clang version when clang-format fails (#1183)
• Clarify clang-format version mismatch instructions (#1193)
• Increase test binary execution timeout (#1188)
• Add a test for handling of note sections (#1211)
• Integration tests: Make skipping tests on unsupported flags more generic (#1225)
• Integration tests: Make compilation errors easier to find (#1224)
• Add basic testing for update-in-place flag (#1230)
• Limit the conditions for executing update-nix-lockfile

🔨 Refactor

• Use u32_from_slice (#1128)
• Introduce BitExtraction trait for u64 (#1157)
• Restructure code in symbol_db.rs a bit (#1252)
• Build only C++ and Rust demanglers
• Simplify get_host_architecture (#1164)
• Merge ResolutionFlags and ValueFlags (#1180)
• Move per-symbol-flags out of SymbolDb (#1186)
• Delete ValueFlags::ADDRESS (#1189)
• Replace all uses of bytemuck with zerocopy (#1210)
• Add readable Debug implementations for internal data structures (#1227)
• Macro to generate ELF newtypes and new SymbolType (#1228)

👥 Contributors

• davidlattimore
• marxin
• mati865
• daniel-levin
• lapla-cogito
• karolzwolak
• andrewdavidmackenzie
• el-yawd
• TechnoPorg
• jarjk
• jakobhellermann
• YamasouA

💲 Sponsors

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored davidlattimore, in particular the following people who have sponsored at least $30 since the last release:

• repi
• rrbutani
• Rafferty97
• CodeursenLiberte
• mati865
• ArthurBrussee
• wasmerio
• +50 others

0.6.0

274 commits since the last release.

• Installation changes
  • Now requires at least rust 1.89.0 to build #1065 (lapla-cogito)
  • We no longer have an installer script (sorry) #1093 (davidlattimore)
  • Wild's release builds are now linked with wild #1093 (davidlattimore)
• Mold's test suite is now run in CI #903 (lapla-cogito)
• Override -shared by (-no)-pie #1095 (mati865)
• Emit error if as-yet unsupported .symver directive is used #1089 (marxin)
• Discard sections with exclude bit set #1077 (lqd)
• Do not look up files from args in search paths #1058 (mati865)
• Support escaping in version scripts #1053 (lapla-cogito)
• Avoid adding input files multiple times #1057 (mati865)
• Fix R_X86_64_GOTPC32_TLSDESC relaxations #1051 (marxin)
• Improve error message when LTO objects cause undefined symbols #1050 (AadiWaghray)
• Support -z interpose #1048 (lapla-cogito)
• Obtain verdefnum from verdef section header #1041 (mati865)
• Added support for CREL #981 (marxin)
• Support --help #1029 (lapla-cogito)
• Support -z undefs #1030 (AadiWaghray)
• Support --time=cycles,instructions,cache-misses etc #1027 (davidlattimore)
• Don't error when there are multiple alias definitions pointing to the same symbol #1021
  (lapla-cogito)
• Autoformat C/C++ test code #1006 (mati865)
• Implement --allow-multiple-definition and -z muldefs #1015 (lapla-cogito)
• Implement more arguments for exporting symbols #974 (mati865)
• Add --unresolved-symbols= and --{warn, error}-unresolved-symbols options support #993
  (lapla-cogito)
• Discard empty string-merge sections. Fixes #932 (davidlattimore)
• Write dynsym in parallel. Fixes #1000 (davidlattimore)
• Compute dynamic symbols versions during layout. #1000 (davidlattimore)
• Fix infinite loop on string-merge errors. #1008 (davidlattimore)
• Implement --wrap. #998 (davidlattimore)
• Support extern "C" and extern "C++" in version scripts. #963 (marxin), #1004 (mati865)
• Allow parallelism when resolving symbols for an object. #1001 (davidlattimore)
• Implement proper symbol lookup in a collections of versions #972 (marxin)
• Fix handling of custom NOBITS TLS sections #966 (davidlattimore)
• Use segment rather than section layout for TLS addresses #975 (davidlattimore)
• Change behaviour of --no-allow-shlib-undefined to match lld #897 (davidlattimore)
• Put custom TLS section into TLS segment #965 (davidlattimore)
• Don't emit non-standard .phdr and .shdr section headers #957 (davidlattimore)
• Support -R option if it points to a directory #956 (marxin)
• Version script glob support #943 (marxin)
• Added jobserver support #923 (marxin)
• Improve symbol priority handling #826 (davidlattimore)
• Don't propagate retain bit to output sections #914 (davidlattimore)
• linker-diff: Handle empty .got #831 (Noratrieb)
• Allow undefined symbols in shared objects to trigger archive entries #930 (davidlattimore)
• Report errors as coming from wild and add some colour #896 (davidlattimore)
• Input shared objects now implies -shared #879 (mati865)
• Support --no-relax only for mandatory situations #885 (mati865)
• Don't report shlib undefined when writing an shlib #884 (davidlattimore)
• Add support for --[no-]allow-shlib-undefined #881 (davidlattimore)
• Use TLS end-offset for TLSLD GOT entry in executables #882 (davidlattimore)
• Allow R_X86_64_GOTPC32_TLSDESC for all executable outputs. Fixes #849 (marxin)
• Add Nix package, overlay, stdenv adapter, and flake. #847 (RossSmyth with help from dawnofmidnight
  and Noratrieb)
• Add support for -z defs #850 (AadiWaghray)
• Fix when TLSDESC and TLSDESC_CALL aren't adjacent. Fixes #842 (davidlattimore)
• Fix infinite loop when we have no input files. Fixes #835 (davidlattimore)
• Add flag non-standard flag --got-plt-syms #827 (lapla-cogito)
• Parallelise opening of input files. #816 (davidlattimore)
• Sort .eh_frame_hdr in parallel. #824 (davidlattimore)
• Add support for --exclude-libs ALL. #812 (davidlattimore)
• Don't apply -Bsymbolic* to undefined symbols (davidlattimore)
• Don't error if debug info references undefined / GCed symbol
• Alias -shared to -Bshareable (lapla-cogito)
• Support -Bsymbolic, -Bsymbolic-non-weak, -Bsymbolic-non-weak-functions and -Bno-symbolic
  #782 (lapla-cogito)
• RISC-V support #704 + other commits (marxin)
• save-dir:
  • Skip non-existent paths #829 (Noratrieb)
  • Handle @filename and thin archives #777 (davidlattimore)
  • Replicate original directory structure. #575 (davidlattimore)
• Improve handling of relative sysroots #772 (davidlattimore)
• Support -Bsymbolic-functions #770 (lapla-cogito)
• Use debug info to show where error came from #768 (davidlattimore)
• Update .preinit_array section locations and flags #761 (marxin)
• Set DT_PREINIT_ARRAY{,SZ} if .preinit_array is present #759 (marxin)

Thanks to everyone who has sponsored davidlattimore, in particular the following people who have sponsored at least $30 since the last release:

• CodeursenLiberte
• pmarks
• mati865
• repi
• Urgau
• teburd
• flba-eb
• tommythorn
• binarybana
• bcmyers
• Kobzol
• HadrienG2
• bes
• twilco
• mstange
• marxin
• joshtriplett
• jonhoo

0.5.0

Release Notes

A lot of fixes and new features since 0.4.0. We had 200 commits.

• Improve error message for LTO objects in archives (mati865)
• Fix setting of STATIC_TLS on non-x86-64 arch (marxin)
• linker-diff: Diff program segments (lapla-cogito)
• Fix alignment of stack segment (lapla-cogito)
• Basic linker script support #44 (davidlattimore)
  • Defining custom output sections
  • Mapping input sections to output sections
  • Defining symbols relative to sections
  • Setting the address of output sections
  • Setting alignment
  • KEEP command
  • ENTRY command
• Support for --entry flag (davidlattimore)
• Ignore some flags that we don't yet support (mati865)
• Don't error if multiple COMDAT groups define the same symbol (davidlattimore)
• Output section attributes now inherit from corresponding input section attributes (davidlattimore)
• Fix linking against protected symbols in shared objects (davidlattimore)
• Integration tests now support a test configuration file (lapla-cogito)
• Added support for -z norelro (davidlattimore)
• Fix misalignment of TLS when TDATA is absent #614 (davidlattimore)
• TLSDESC handling improvements (marxin)
• Set DF_ORIGIN and DF_1_ORIGIN when -z origin is passed (davidlattimore)
• Don't error if _start is undefined #613 (davidlattimore)
• Fix direct references to ifuncs in relocatable executables #580 (davidlattimore)
• Support -l:<name.ext> args (mati865)
• Make sure that we don't export hidden symbols #604 (davidlattimore)
• Don't emit duplicate symbol error on STB_GNU_UNIQUE #598 (davidlattimore)
• Fix dynamic relocations with non-zero addends on recent glibc #576 (davidlattimore)
• Better error reporting for duplicate symbols (lapla-cogito)
• Fix sysroot handling when sysroot indicators are not followed by a slash #590 (mati865)
• Handle symbol aliases when doing copy relocations #576 (davidlattimore)
• Fix error message if an empty linker script is provided (marxin)
• A few performance improvements (davidlattimore, mati865, marxin)
• Support outputting versioned symbols in shared objects #41 (mati865)
• Support for --start-lib and --end-lib (davidlattimore)
• Verify that input files didn't change while we were running (davidlattimore)
• Added support for thin archives (GlowingScrewdriver)
• Don't delete old output file if it's not a regular file #546 (davidlattimore)
• Added support for --undefined #528 (davidlattimore)
• More aarch64 relaxations (marxin)

wild-linker 0.5.0

Install wild-linker 0.5.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild/releases/download/0.5.0/wild-linker-installer.sh | sh

Download wild-linker 0.5.0

File	Platform	Checksum
wild-linker-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
wild-linker-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	x64 Linux	checksum

linker-diff 0.5.0

Install linker-diff 0.5.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild/releases/download/0.5.0/linker-diff-installer.sh | sh

Download linker-diff 0.5.0

File	Platform	Checksum
linker-diff-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	ARM64 Linux	checksum
linker-diff-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	x64 Linux	checksum

0.4.0

Release Notes

A huge release with more than 250 commits since 0.3.0. We've also had several new contributors,
which is awesome.

• Wild now supports aarch64 on Linux (marxin)
• Support for TLSDESC (marxin)
• Linker diff mostly rewritten. Now gives much less false positives and diffs more stuff.
  (davidlattimore)
• Added support for --sysroot (mati865)
• Added support for --whole-archive (riverbl)
• Added support for -z nocopyreloc (davidlattimore)
• Added support for references to versioned symbols (davidlattimore)
• Added support declaring default symbol versions via '@@' in symbol names (davidlattimore)
• Added support for RELRO (inflation)
• Report errors on undefined symbols (mati865)
• Allow --version to be specified with regular linker arguments (inflation)
• Detect objects built for wrong architecture and report proper error (inflation)
• Keep sections if __start_/__stop_{SEC} is referenced. Fixes linkme crate (davidlattimore)
• Improved performance of string merging, which affects debug info link time (davidlattimore,
  marxin)
• Remove unnecessary and unwanted copy relocations (davidlattimore)
• Emit debug symbols for copy relocations (davidlattimore)
• Demangle symbol names in various error messages (davidlattimore, marxin)
• Improve error message when an absolute relocation is used against a read-only section with a
  relocatable output (davidlattimore)
• Handle initialisers / destructors in .ctors.* / .dtors.* (davidlattimore)
• Added flag --update-in-place (davidlattimore)
• Fixed referenced to merged strings in relocatable binaries (davidlattimore)
• Optimise x86-64 jmp instructions to bypass GOT (mati865)
• Ignore or warn on various flags that we don't yet support (marxin)
• Don't strip .debug_ sections if they have the alloc flag set (davidlattimore)
• Lots of improvements to testing (marxin, mati865, davidlattimore)
• Fixed link error if a shared object had a strong reference to a symbol defined by a discarded
  archive entry (davidlattimore)
• We should now be publishing to crates.io, so tools like cargo-binstall should work.
• Numerous bugfixes

wild-linker 0.4.0

Install wild-linker 0.4.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild/releases/download/0.4.0/wild-linker-installer.sh | sh

Download wild-linker 0.4.0

File	Platform	Checksum
wild-linker-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	x64 Linux	checksum

linker-diff 0.4.0

Install linker-diff 0.4.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild/releases/download/0.4.0/linker-diff-installer.sh | sh

Download linker-diff 0.4.0

File	Platform	Checksum
linker-diff-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	x64 Linux	checksum

0.3.0

wild 0.3.0

Install wild 0.3.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild/releases/download/0.3.0/wild-installer.sh | sh

Download wild 0.3.0

File	Platform	Checksum
wild-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	x64 Linux	checksum

linker-diff 0.3.0

Install linker-diff 0.3.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/davidlattimore/wild/releases/download/0.3.0/linker-diff-installer.sh | sh

Download linker-diff 0.3.0

File	Platform	Checksum
linker-diff-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz	x64 Linux	checksum