I am trying to build a relocatable binary file for an embedded system which includes only some libraries. It will not include any source file, just the libraries will be linked into a relocatable file as follows:
ld -r -o <binary_name> --whole-archive <list of libraries>
If I do not use the --whole-archive option, then the resulting binary file does not contain any symbols because, I am not linking any object files which will use the symbols. So, I am using the --whole-archive and the binary file is generated successfully.
Now, I want to reduce the size of the binary file. I have only few apps on my embedded system, and so, I know exactly which symbols from the list of libraries will be used by my apps. So, while linking, I want to include only this set of symbols in the final binary file.
For example, suppose I am trying to link libc into a relocatable binary file. And suppose, my application will use only printf symbol from libc, then I want my relocatable binary to contain only printf and any symbols used by printf.
Is there any way to achieve this?