Is it possible to compile & link Clang/LLVM using the gold linker?

Question

I'm writing a custom pass for LLVM/Clang, and recompiling tends to take a while and use a lot of memory. I've heard that the gold linker (1) takes less time and (2) uses less memory than the standard ld linker.

Is there a way to pass flags into the LLVM/Clang build process and change to the gold linker? As per this answer, I've been attempting to use an override file, but I don't seem to be having a lot of success.

I'll also note that I'm compiling the latest Clang/LLVM build (4.0) using Clang 3.9; I don't mind switching back to GCC if necessary but would rather avoid it.

Just install the gold package and it will be used instead of ld. — usr1234567, Nov 10 '16 at 23:23
You might want to consider lld instead of ld, it claims to be faster, too. Not sure how it performances compared to gold. — usr1234567, Nov 10 '16 at 23:24
Possible duplicate of [CMake: use a custom linker](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1867745/cmake-use-a-custom-linker) — usr1234567, Nov 10 '16 at 23:26

Brian Cain · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-04T13:31:14.967

12

Post-4.0 (after commit rL292047), you should set LLVM_USE_LINKER to gold like so:

cmake ... -DLLVM_USE_LINKER=gold ...

Refer to http://llvm.org/docs/CMake.html#llvm-specific-variables

While you can still use gold, these days (October 2021) you should probably use lld if it's present in your host toolchain. If your host toolchain is a clang+llvm distribution from llvm.org, it probably will. If your host toolchain is from a linux distribution's package manager, it will likely be available but installed as a separate independent package.

cmake ... -DLLVM_ENABLE_LLD=ON ...

edited Oct 04 '21 at 13:31

answered Jan 20 '17 at 20:20

Brian Cain

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Unfortunately I was (and am) stuck with an earlier version of Clang, but this perfectly answers the question. Accepted! – tonysdg Jan 22 '17 at 07:22

Is it possible to compile & link Clang/LLVM using the gold linker?

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