Mold Linker Gains New Option To Deliver "Massively Faster" Performance

The Mold linker is already a high-speed alternative to the likes of LLVM LLD and GNU Gold. Its performance is very impressive while those using it while carrying out debug builds have the ability to achieve an insane speed-up thanks to a new option.

Mold lead developer Rui Ueyama shared that a new "--separate-debug-file" option has been added to the linker for "massively faster" performance. Linking Clang with debug info included can drop down to less than a half second compared to six and a half seconds currently... Rui wrote on Twitter/X:

"With the new --separate-debug-file option, the mold linker is massively faster than before. E.g., it can link Clang w/ debug info in 0.46 s vs. lld in 6.4 s.

The secret sauce is that we bundle the debug info sections in another file, and the file is created in the background."

Exciting times for the Mold open-source linker and only becoming even faster with numerous optimizations that it delivers speedy results in general for both release and debug builds.