Normally, if you use archive (.a) files, then any .o files within them that are not needed, are thrown away. But that is at .o file granularity. There's no per

Normally, if you use archive (.a) files, then any .o files within them that are not needed, are thrown away. But that is at .o file granularity. There's no per-symbol dead code elimination. And if you provide a list of .o files (no .a files) then it doesn't throw away anything at all.