The linker proper will call the _bfd_link_add_symbols
entry point for each object file or archive which is to be
linked (typically these are the files named on the command
line, but some may also come from the linker script). The
entry point is responsible for examining the file. For an
object file, BFD must add any relevant symbol information to
the hash table. For an archive, BFD must determine which
elements of the archive should be used and adding them to the
link.
The a.out version of this entry point is
NAME(aout,link_add_symbols)
.