Linkers - making executables smaller

I have a requirement to make executables smaller. I cannot use
shared libraries. I know there are optimisations on many compilers to
optimise for size rather than speed but I feel that this is only part
of the answer. Have you come across any technologies in which the
linker performs 'global' optimisations? It would seem to me to be
a good place to stick a bunch of size/speed optimisations since the
linker can have access to the whole code. I know that there are
profiling tools but these seem to feed back into the compiler.


Is this an unreasonable request? Is there any real reason why linkers
are stuck in the early 1970s?


Thanks in advance for any information.


Peter Hall
[Other than adding support for shared libraries, linkers seem to be
getting dumber as the years pass. I have seen references to globally
optimizing linkers. I think decwrl did one, and the MINIX linker (which
was really the assembler) may have as well. -John]




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