partial.md

Partial

Information for generating partial linker scripts.

This setting is only used when generating partial linker scripts for incremental linking, thus being ignored during normal linker script generation.

Partial linking allows incremental builds by partially linking each individual segment (usually with the --relocatable flag from ld) and then linking those together. This approach can produce faster rebuilds since there's less work for the linker to do on each final link, with the caveat a clean build may be slower.

To enable partial linker script generation on the CLI use the --partial-linking flag.

Every attribute listed is optional unless explicitly stated.

Table of contents

• Partial
  • Table of contents
  • build_segments_folder
    • Example
    • Valid values
  • scripts_folder
    • Example
    • Valid values
  • segment_extension
    • Example
    • Valid values
    • Default value

build_segments_folder

This field is required.

This field holds a path to a folder where each built partial segment will be placed by the build system. Each built partial segment is expected to be named after the corresponding segment and have the file extension specified by segment_extension.

This path will be prefixed by the base_path field during the scripts generation.

Example

settings:
  base_path: build/us/

  partial:
    build_segments_folder: segments/
    scripts_folder: linker_scripts/partial/

The above example indicates the built partial segments will be placed in the build/us/segments/ folder.

Valid values

Non-empty path.

scripts_folder

This field is required.

This field holds a path to a folder where the generated partial linker scripts will be written to.

Each partial script will be named like the segment's name with a .ld file extension.

If dependency generation is enabled, dependency files will be generated in this folder for each segment, using the segment's name and .d as the file extension.

If path lists generation is enabled, path lists for each individual object will be generated in this folder for each segment, using the segment's name and .list as the file extension.

Example

settings:
  partial:
    build_segments_folder: segments/
    scripts_folder: linker_scripts/partial/

Valid values

Non-empty path.

segment_extension

Specify the extension used for partially linked segments.

It does not include a leading dot.

Example

settings:
  partial:
    scripts_folder: linker_scripts/partial/
    build_segments_folder: segments/
    segment_extension: o

Valid values

Non empty string.

Default value

plf (short for "partially linked file")