strip --strip-unneeded?

[Ian Lance Taylor]

   Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 15:39:11 -0700
   From: "H . J . Lu" <hjl@lucon.org>

   It is unclear to me what "strip --strip-unneeded" should do on .o
   files. To me, it should keep global symbols as well as symbols which
   need relocation processing. Global symbols defined in the .o file may
   be needed for relocation processing for other files. Currently
   "strip --strip-unneeded" will remove global symbols which aren't
   involved in relocation.

   Ian, any ideas?

I think I agree.  strip --strip-unneeded is meaningful on a
relocateable file.  It should remove only BSF_LOCAL symbols which are
not referenced by any relocations.

A relocateable file is one with HAS_RELOC set, and neither EXEC_P nor
DYNAMIC set.  However, I don't know whether are all BFD backends are
fully reliable about setting EXEC_P and DYNAMIC.

Ian