*BSD News Article 73000


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From: loewis@cs.tu-berlin.de (Martin v.Loewis)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: GCC 2.7.2 for FreeBSD ??
Date: 7 Jul 1996 00:24:29 GMT
Organization: Technical University of Berlin, Germany
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References: <4rhnut$23c@wdl1.wdl.loral.com> <31DD7744.35DB9D01@lambert.org>
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In article <31DD7744.35DB9D01@lambert.org>,
Terry Lambert  <terry@lambert.org> wrote:
>GCC 2.7.2 can not successfully compile the kernel without patches.

Is that documented somewhere? It might be helpful for user mode applications
as well to have a list of sample programs that either don't compile or
produce invalid code when compiled with 2.7.2.

>The linker has consistently failed to integrate FreeBSD provided
>patches for a.out shared libraries.

Who failed to intergrate patches? The linker, as in /usr/bin/ld?
In what way is the linker's support for a.out shared libraries related
to the compiler version? Sorry, I'm just having difficulties to understand
that sentence.

>It would be helpful if the Elf standard would define some mechanism
>for differentiating Elf binaries.

You mean, to distinguish images for the same architecture but different
operating systems? For images linked with shared libraries, you can do that
by providing different shared loaders.
On some architectures, such support is not necessary. For example, on the
Sparc, the different systems provide different trap entry points, so you
know at run time what kind of image you have.
I agree that support for further image identification would be helpful.
Historically, I assume it's not there because it was defined in the context
of binary compatibility anyways.

Regards,
Martin