These common terms appear in many option descriptions:
- A cased option is considered case-sensitive. By default, no options are case-sensitive.
- The compatibility indicates that the option is borrowed from another vendor's tool and its behavior may only approximate its counterpart.
- A global option has an effect over the entire command line and is parsed before any other options. When several global options are specified, they are interpreted in order.
- A deprecated option will be eliminated in the future and should no longer be used. An alternative form is supplied.
- An ignored option is accepted by the tool but has no effect.
- A meaningless option is accepted by the tool but probably has no meaning for the target operating system.
- An obsolete option indicates a deprecated option that is no longer available.
- A substituted option has the same effect as another option. This points out a preferred form and prevents confusion when similar options appear in the help.
- Use of default in the help text indicates that the given value or variation of an option is used unless otherwise overridden.
This tool calls the linker (unless a compiler option such as -c prevents it) and understands linker options - use "-help tool=other" to see them. Options marked "passed to linker" are used by the compiler and the linker; options marked "for linker" are used only by the linker. When using the compiler and linker separately, you must pass the common options to both.