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 - <a name="VERSION"></a>
 - <div class="header">
 - <p>
 - Next: <a href="Expressions.html#Expressions" accesskey="n" rel="next">Expressions</a>, Previous: <a href="PHDRS.html#PHDRS" accesskey="p" rel="prev">PHDRS</a>, Up: <a href="Scripts.html#Scripts" accesskey="u" rel="up">Scripts</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>
 - </div>
 - <hr>
 - <a name="VERSION-Command"></a>
 - <h3 class="section">3.9 VERSION Command</h3>
 - <a name="index-VERSION-_007bscript-text_007d"></a>
 - <a name="index-symbol-versions"></a>
 - <a name="index-version-script"></a>
 - <a name="index-versions-of-symbols"></a>
 - <p>The linker supports symbol versions when using ELF.  Symbol versions are
 - only useful when using shared libraries.  The dynamic linker can use
 - symbol versions to select a specific version of a function when it runs
 - a program that may have been linked against an earlier version of the
 - shared library.
 - </p>
 - <p>You can include a version script directly in the main linker script, or
 - you can supply the version script as an implicit linker script.  You can
 - also use the ‘<samp>--version-script</samp>’ linker option.
 - </p>
 - <p>The syntax of the <code>VERSION</code> command is simply
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">VERSION { version-script-commands }
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>The format of the version script commands is identical to that used by
 - Sun’s linker in Solaris 2.5.  The version script defines a tree of
 - version nodes.  You specify the node names and interdependencies in the
 - version script.  You can specify which symbols are bound to which
 - version nodes, and you can reduce a specified set of symbols to local
 - scope so that they are not globally visible outside of the shared
 - library.
 - </p>
 - <p>The easiest way to demonstrate the version script language is with a few
 - examples.
 - </p>
 - <div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">VERS_1.1 {
 - 	 global:
 - 		 foo1;
 - 	 local:
 - 		 old*;
 - 		 original*;
 - 		 new*;
 - };
 - 
 - VERS_1.2 {
 - 		 foo2;
 - } VERS_1.1;
 - 
 - VERS_2.0 {
 - 		 bar1; bar2;
 - 	 extern "C++" {
 - 		 ns::*;
 - 		 "f(int, double)";
 - 	 };
 - } VERS_1.2;
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>This example version script defines three version nodes.  The first
 - version node defined is ‘<samp>VERS_1.1</samp>’; it has no other dependencies.
 - The script binds the symbol ‘<samp>foo1</samp>’ to ‘<samp>VERS_1.1</samp>’.  It reduces
 - a number of symbols to local scope so that they are not visible outside
 - of the shared library; this is done using wildcard patterns, so that any
 - symbol whose name begins with ‘<samp>old</samp>’, ‘<samp>original</samp>’, or ‘<samp>new</samp>’
 - is matched.  The wildcard patterns available are the same as those used
 - in the shell when matching filenames (also known as “globbing”).
 - However, if you specify the symbol name inside double quotes, then the
 - name is treated as literal, rather than as a glob pattern.
 - </p>
 - <p>Next, the version script defines node ‘<samp>VERS_1.2</samp>’.  This node
 - depends upon ‘<samp>VERS_1.1</samp>’.  The script binds the symbol ‘<samp>foo2</samp>’
 - to the version node ‘<samp>VERS_1.2</samp>’.
 - </p>
 - <p>Finally, the version script defines node ‘<samp>VERS_2.0</samp>’.  This node
 - depends upon ‘<samp>VERS_1.2</samp>’.  The scripts binds the symbols ‘<samp>bar1</samp>’
 - and ‘<samp>bar2</samp>’ are bound to the version node ‘<samp>VERS_2.0</samp>’.
 - </p>
 - <p>When the linker finds a symbol defined in a library which is not
 - specifically bound to a version node, it will effectively bind it to an
 - unspecified base version of the library.  You can bind all otherwise
 - unspecified symbols to a given version node by using ‘<samp>global: *;</samp>’
 - somewhere in the version script.  Note that it’s slightly crazy to use
 - wildcards in a global spec except on the last version node.  Global
 - wildcards elsewhere run the risk of accidentally adding symbols to the
 - set exported for an old version.  That’s wrong since older versions
 - ought to have a fixed set of symbols.
 - </p>
 - <p>The names of the version nodes have no specific meaning other than what
 - they might suggest to the person reading them.  The ‘<samp>2.0</samp>’ version
 - could just as well have appeared in between ‘<samp>1.1</samp>’ and ‘<samp>1.2</samp>’.
 - However, this would be a confusing way to write a version script.
 - </p>
 - <p>Node name can be omitted, provided it is the only version node
 - in the version script.  Such version script doesn’t assign any versions to
 - symbols, only selects which symbols will be globally visible out and which
 - won’t.
 - </p>
 - <div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">{ global: foo; bar; local: *; };
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>When you link an application against a shared library that has versioned
 - symbols, the application itself knows which version of each symbol it
 - requires, and it also knows which version nodes it needs from each
 - shared library it is linked against.  Thus at runtime, the dynamic
 - loader can make a quick check to make sure that the libraries you have
 - linked against do in fact supply all of the version nodes that the
 - application will need to resolve all of the dynamic symbols.  In this
 - way it is possible for the dynamic linker to know with certainty that
 - all external symbols that it needs will be resolvable without having to
 - search for each symbol reference.
 - </p>
 - <p>The symbol versioning is in effect a much more sophisticated way of
 - doing minor version checking that SunOS does.  The fundamental problem
 - that is being addressed here is that typically references to external
 - functions are bound on an as-needed basis, and are not all bound when
 - the application starts up.  If a shared library is out of date, a
 - required interface may be missing; when the application tries to use
 - that interface, it may suddenly and unexpectedly fail.  With symbol
 - versioning, the user will get a warning when they start their program if
 - the libraries being used with the application are too old.
 - </p>
 - <p>There are several GNU extensions to Sun’s versioning approach.  The
 - first of these is the ability to bind a symbol to a version node in the
 - source file where the symbol is defined instead of in the versioning
 - script.  This was done mainly to reduce the burden on the library
 - maintainer.  You can do this by putting something like:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">__asm__(".symver original_foo,foo@VERS_1.1");
 - </pre></div>
 - <p>in the C source file.  This renames the function ‘<samp>original_foo</samp>’ to
 - be an alias for ‘<samp>foo</samp>’ bound to the version node ‘<samp>VERS_1.1</samp>’.
 - The ‘<samp>local:</samp>’ directive can be used to prevent the symbol
 - ‘<samp>original_foo</samp>’ from being exported. A ‘<samp>.symver</samp>’ directive
 - takes precedence over a version script.
 - </p>
 - <p>The second GNU extension is to allow multiple versions of the same
 - function to appear in a given shared library.  In this way you can make
 - an incompatible change to an interface without increasing the major
 - version number of the shared library, while still allowing applications
 - linked against the old interface to continue to function.
 - </p>
 - <p>To do this, you must use multiple ‘<samp>.symver</samp>’ directives in the
 - source file.  Here is an example:
 - </p>
 - <div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">__asm__(".symver original_foo,foo@");
 - __asm__(".symver old_foo,foo@VERS_1.1");
 - __asm__(".symver old_foo1,foo@VERS_1.2");
 - __asm__(".symver new_foo,foo@@VERS_2.0");
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>In this example, ‘<samp>foo@</samp>’ represents the symbol ‘<samp>foo</samp>’ bound to the
 - unspecified base version of the symbol.  The source file that contains this
 - example would define 4 C functions: ‘<samp>original_foo</samp>’, ‘<samp>old_foo</samp>’,
 - ‘<samp>old_foo1</samp>’, and ‘<samp>new_foo</samp>’.
 - </p>
 - <p>When you have multiple definitions of a given symbol, there needs to be
 - some way to specify a default version to which external references to
 - this symbol will be bound.  You can do this with the
 - ‘<samp>foo@@VERS_2.0</samp>’ type of ‘<samp>.symver</samp>’ directive.  You can only
 - declare one version of a symbol as the default in this manner; otherwise
 - you would effectively have multiple definitions of the same symbol.
 - </p>
 - <p>If you wish to bind a reference to a specific version of the symbol
 - within the shared library, you can use the aliases of convenience
 - (i.e., ‘<samp>old_foo</samp>’), or you can use the ‘<samp>.symver</samp>’ directive to
 - specifically bind to an external version of the function in question.
 - </p>
 - <p>You can also specify the language in the version script:
 - </p>
 - <div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">VERSION extern "lang" { version-script-commands }
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>The supported ‘<samp>lang</samp>’s are ‘<samp>C</samp>’, ‘<samp>C++</samp>’, and ‘<samp>Java</samp>’.
 - The linker will iterate over the list of symbols at the link time and
 - demangle them according to ‘<samp>lang</samp>’ before matching them to the
 - patterns specified in ‘<samp>version-script-commands</samp>’.  The default
 - ‘<samp>lang</samp>’ is ‘<samp>C</samp>’.
 - </p>
 - <p>Demangled names may contains spaces and other special characters.  As
 - described above, you can use a glob pattern to match demangled names,
 - or you can use a double-quoted string to match the string exactly.  In
 - the latter case, be aware that minor differences (such as differing
 - whitespace) between the version script and the demangler output will
 - cause a mismatch.  As the exact string generated by the demangler
 - might change in the future, even if the mangled name does not, you
 - should check that all of your version directives are behaving as you
 - expect when you upgrade.
 - </p>
 - <hr>
 - <div class="header">
 - <p>
 - Next: <a href="Expressions.html#Expressions" accesskey="n" rel="next">Expressions</a>, Previous: <a href="PHDRS.html#PHDRS" accesskey="p" rel="prev">PHDRS</a>, Up: <a href="Scripts.html#Scripts" accesskey="u" rel="up">Scripts</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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