From 72f0ae7ec46c24d59aef2fae793275bede59ac8c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Matthew Lugg <mlugg@mlugg.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 31 May 2026 08:21:59 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Compilation.Config: improve error reporting for
 '-fnew-linker'

...and allow using `Elf2` with backends other than self-hosted x86_64.
The new ELF linker is currently opt-in, so there's no harm in allowing
backends which are not yet "officially" supported. (And also I'm going
to make the LLVM backend work with `Elf2` in the next commit because
that seems pretty trivial.)
---
 src/Compilation/Config.zig | 2 +-
 src/main.zig               | 2 +-
 src/target.zig             | 8 +++-----
 3 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/Compilation/Config.zig b/src/Compilation/Config.zig
index 62dfca1e4ba78962110220f42002d6effdb5af6a..ea9929bbcd70986deacc74d28f94660b060dd217 100644
--- a/src/Compilation/Config.zig
+++ b/src/Compilation/Config.zig
@@ -441,7 +441,7 @@ pub fn resolve(options: Options) ResolveError!Config {
             break :b false;
         }
 
-        if (!target_util.hasNewLinkerSupport(target.ofmt, backend)) {
+        if (!target_util.hasNewLinker(target.ofmt)) {
             if (options.use_new_linker == true) return error.NewLinkerIncompatibleObjectFormat;
             break :b false;
         }
diff --git a/src/main.zig b/src/main.zig
index 1e674077e461dc63c5be1c6a25dc0d0ca1056f12..7dc632c7b184298e3d4b7f5242cd69281ef5c334 100644
--- a/src/main.zig
+++ b/src/main.zig
@@ -4137,8 +4137,8 @@ fn createModule(
             error.LldUnavailable => fatal("zig was compiled without LLD libraries", .{}),
             error.ClangUnavailable => fatal("zig was compiled without Clang libraries", .{}),
             error.DllExportFnsRequiresWindows => fatal("only Windows OS targets support DLLs", .{}),
-            error.NewLinkerIncompatibleObjectFormat => fatal("using the new linker to link {s} files is unsupported", .{@tagName(target.ofmt)}),
             error.NewLinkerIncompatibleWithLld => fatal("using the new linker is incompatible with using lld", .{}),
+            error.NewLinkerIncompatibleObjectFormat => fatal("no new linker available for '{t}' files", .{target.ofmt}),
         };
     }
 
diff --git a/src/target.zig b/src/target.zig
index 56c429a13496f37f2f66c16a97d1c497992476f3..997dbb89453bf30bcbc5cb172000684c27d75ba6 100644
--- a/src/target.zig
+++ b/src/target.zig
@@ -275,12 +275,10 @@ pub fn hasLldSupport(ofmt: std.Target.ObjectFormat) bool {
     };
 }
 
-pub fn hasNewLinkerSupport(ofmt: std.Target.ObjectFormat, backend: std.lang.CompilerBackend) bool {
+/// Returns `true` if `ofmt` has two linker implementations, so `-fnew-linker` is meaningful.
+pub fn hasNewLinker(ofmt: std.Target.ObjectFormat) bool {
     return switch (ofmt) {
-        .elf, .coff => switch (backend) {
-            .stage2_x86_64 => true,
-            else => false,
-        },
+        .elf => true,
         else => false,
     };
 }
-- 
2.54.0