Hi, Howard Chu wrote:
If you guys are investigating new binutils and new object file formats, then now is a good time to invest in developing a re-linkable executable file format. ELF may be a good starting point; as noted already you can put whatever sections you want into an ELF file. You could try keeping the ELF .relo section and just append it to the TOS file image, with an appropriate pointer to it in the standard TOS symbol table.
I see no real benefit from changing the format of the executables. The current format provides everything you need, including the relocation information. Why change that?
The real problem is the lack of dynamic linking facilities which has nothing to do with the container format of executables. I would rather investigate in the format and logic of shared libraries. If you agree with me, that MiNT will not see "real" virtual memory management before the heat death of the universe, and limit expectations to dynamic linking (as opposed to sharing code sections in memory between processes), I can't see why the Perl interpreter shouldn't be able to dynamically load extensions.
Ciao, Guido -- Imperia AG, Development Leyboldstr. 10 - D-50354 Hürth - http://www.imperia.net/
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