Re: What is the meaning/purpose of the “=” that sometimes appears in the SEARCH_DIR command in binutils' ldscripts?

[Hans-Peter Nilsson]

On Tue, 7 Jul 2015, Cary Coutant wrote:
> >> The '=' causes ld to add the sysroot to the path. I suspect this is
> >> undocumented because it's an internal implementation detail intended
> >> only for the linker-provided script templates.
> >
> > the latest manual does document it.  the one referenced is from binutils-2.12
> > which long predates this functionality.
> >
> > -L searchdir
> > --library-path=searchdir
> > ...
> > If searchdir begins with =, then the = will be replaced by the sysroot prefix,
> > controlled by the `--sysroot' option, or specified when the linker is
> > configured.
> > ...
> > The paths can also be specified in a link script with the SEARCH_DIR command.
> > Directories specified this way are searched at the point in which the linker
> > script appears in the command line.
> >
> > https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/ld/Options.html
>
> Oops, sorry, I didn't even think to look at the version number of the
> link provided.
>
> If it can be found outside the built-in script templates, I guess I
> should implement this feature in gold.

That'd be great.  Note that the "="-means-sysroot feature is
also present for other input file paths in linker scripts, since
last October, both for "-quoted and unquoted file paths.
Sorry for not looking into adding this to gold at the time.

brgds, H-P