What version of ld are you using? I could reproduce the first example when you reported it. But now I'm struggling to reproduce it at all. --- GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.26.51.20160128 Copyright (C) 2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence version 3 or (at your option) a later version. This program has absolutely no warranty.