HP-UX Linker and Libraries June 2006 Release Notes

New Features in This Release

Chapter 16

Direct Access to the Linker Footprint

This version of linker adds a new program header, PT_HP_LINKER_FOOTPRINT, which points

to the linker footprint in the output file.

This feature is available only for Intel Itanium-based systems.

New +FP Flag Values to Specify Rounding Mode

For floating point operations, this version of linker enables you to specify values for rounding

mode. The following values are available:

• RN - Round to nearest. This is the default value.

• RU - Round upward toward +infinity.

• RD - Round downward toward -infinity.

• RZ - Round toward zero, that is, truncate.

This feature is available for both Intel Itanium-based systems and PA64 systems.

New Flag to Allocate Storage for Uninitialized Data

The new +nobss linker option enables you to include the bss data of the shared library in the

shared library's data segment. When you build a program with the +nobss option, the number

of mmap and munmap calls at load time are minimal. However, the use of +nobss option

increases the disk size of the shared library. HP recommends the use of +nobss option only

when the frequent loading and unloading of shared libraries affect the application

performance.

This feature is available for both Intel Itanium-based systems and PA64 systems.

New Linker Features for PA32 Systems

The following new feature supports PA32 systems:

Dynamic Path Search Behavior for setuid Programs

For setuid programs if SHLIB_PATH/LD_LIBRARY_PATH is not set, the loader does not consider

the paths listed in the file /etc/dld.sl.conf. The dynamic path lookup is disabled and the

search is restricted to the embedded path (RPATH).