Restricting symbols in a Linux static library

I don’t believe GNU ld has any such options; Ulrich must have meant objcopy, which has many such options: --localize-hidden, --localize-symbol=symbolname, --localize-symbols=filename.

The --localize-hidden in particular allows one to have a very fine control over which symbols are exposed. Consider:

int foo() { return 42; }
int __attribute__((visibility("hidden"))) bar() { return 24; }

gcc -c foo.c
nm foo.o
000000000000000b T bar
0000000000000000 T foo

objcopy --localize-hidden foo.o bar.o
nm bar.o
000000000000000b t bar
0000000000000000 T foo

So bar() is no longer exported from the object (even though it is still present and usable for debugging). You could also remove bar() all together with objcopy --strip-unneeded.