[PATCH v3 17/18] PR ld/24600: BFD: Add general linker support for fake archives

[Jan Beulich]

On 13.01.2026 17:44, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jan 2026, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>> I can only repeat that I'm missing any information on when / where this is
>>>> actually useful (and why using an archive in the same situation would be
>>>> undesirable / impossible). Without such information, I fear I'm not feeling
>>>> in the position to approve respective changes. (Which of course doesn't
>>>> mean I would NAK them; another maintainer might still do the review and
>>>> give their okay.)
>>>
>>>  It's useful where the caller of `bfd_openr_fake_archive' wants to treat a 
>>> collection of files as if they were an archive, in a link.
>>
>> And what gets in the way of actually making them into an archive, when
>> "as if an archive" is wanted?
> 
>  I don't know, especially given our support for thin archives (regular 
> archives require so much extra storage space as the original copies of 
> member files have already taken, and I suppose that could be an issue, but 
> that's been already solved with thin archives).
> 
>  It seems an actually used feature however, given that unmaintained and 
> deprecated GOLD already has it and I'm told the lack of this feature in 
> BFD prevents GOLD from being dropped from binutils as some projects rely 
> on this feature despite the obvious performance penalty.

Okay, this is a relevant piece of information that I wasn't aware of so far
(and which could do with adding to the description of, perhaps, the final
patch).

Jan