Hi H.J.

  Thanks for taking an interest in this.

> Please try this patch.
  It did not appear to make a difference. :-(

  I am using an extended test case (attached) but the results are the
  same as before:

  % as eliminate.s -o eliminate.o
  % ld -e 0 --gc-sections --print-gc-sections eliminate.o 
  ld: removing unused section '.group' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: removing unused section '.group' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: removing unused section '.text' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: removing unused section '.unused1' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: removing unused section '.unused2[unused_group]' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: removing unused section '.unused3[unused_group2]' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: removing unused section '.gnu.note2[unused_group]' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: removing unused section '.gnu.note3[unused_group2]' in file 'eliminate.o'
  ld: a.out: sh_link of section `.gnu.note1' points to discarded section `.unused1' of `eliminate.o'
  ld: final link failed: bad value

Cheers
  Nick