Re: [MiNT] 1.15.2 flag settings

[Guido Flohr <gufl0000@stud.uni-sb.de>]

Hi,

Martin-Eric Racine wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Frank Naumann wrote:
> 
> > > This has probably already come up. I was looking at flag settings in
> > > my auto folder apps and
> > > noticed that using "fileinfo, V1.03" that the flags in
> > > MiNT V1.15.2 cannot be set. Is this a "feature"
> >
> > The kernel is build with the new binutils that create a different program
> > format. You need the mintbin package that contain updated tools to
> > manipulate the flags (and some other things).
> 
> Was this change necessary?

Have you tried it with prgflags or toglclr?  The header was actually not 
changed but only extended.  Programs reading or writing flags should all
still work.  I can't imagine why they shouldn't.

> 
> The program header flags is a well-documented method created by Atari
> and people were just barely starting to use the flags correctly, since
> about 6 months.

The flag mechanism is still present and still works.  The new program
format
has two major changes from the old tool's view:  

- The "reserved" header field now contains 'M', 'i', 'N', 'T'.
- The symbol table is incompatible with older versions.

The major advantages of the new format are:

- You can use one and the same symbol lister (nm) for programs,
libraries
  and object files
- You can strip the entire symbol table and still read/set the stack
size
- You can keep all debugging information in the executables.  That
allows
  you to display the exact source file and line number where a program
  crash happened when MiNT gives you something like "foobar (pid 123):
BUS
  ERROR, PC: ...".
- You can specify arbitrary entry points where program execution starts.
  With a little phantasy you could even do that after linking, which
allows
  you to change a program's behavior completely by setting the entry
point.

Hope that are enough good reasons.

Ciao

Guido