gold is a linker for ELF

Executable and Linkable Format

In computing, the Executable and Linkable Format is a common standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps. First published in the System V Application Binary Interface specification, and later in the Tool Interface Standard, it was quickly accepted among...

 files. It became an official GNU package and was added to binutils on March, 2008 and first released in binutils version 2.19. Gold was developed by Ian Lance Taylor and a small team at Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

. The motivation for writing gold was to make a linker that is faster than the GNU linker, especially for large applications

Application software

Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

 coded in C++

C++

C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

.

See also

• GNU binutils
• GNU linker
• Comparison of executable file formats
  Comparison of executable file formats
  This is a comparison of executable file formats.Among the above formats, the ones in most common use are PE , ELF and Mach-O .- References :...
  
  , also for PE/COFF (Windows), and Mach-O (Mac OS X) formats.

External links

• Ian Lance Taylor's blog with gold description
• LLVM gold plugin