common symbols in archive symbol table

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 14:49:20 -0500
   From: Roland McGrath <roland@frob.com>

   This seems to be related to the discussion going on lately between Ian and
   Nick, but I'm not sure exactly what the state of that is and how this fits in.

   I am using sourceware binutils as of today, configured with:
	    --host=i586-linux --target=arm-elf --enable-targets=arm-netbsd

   I am using the arm-elf target.  What I am observing is that a common
   definition does not appear to make it into an archive symbol table,
   and is therefore not found by the linker.  This is different from the
   behavior I have always seen on x86/ELF, but I haven't built the current
   binutils for that target to compare today.

Nick had checked in a patch to not put common symbols in the archive
symbol table (with my agreement), but he reverted it an hour ago (also
with my agreement).  We just decided that it was a bad idea.
Hopefully updating your sources will fix your problem.

   (Is there a way to make objdump show you the archive's symbol table?)

No, but you can do it with the nm --print-armap option.  There should
probably be an objdump option as well.

Ian