Re: Linking scripts and interpreters into an executable

On Thu, 30 Jul 1998, Juergen Kahrs wrote:


> not have an option for (statically) linking scripts (shell, AWK, Perl)
> together with their interpreters into an executable.
>
> Does anyone know of a linker which can do this ?


I have not seen explicit support for this kind of feature but I think
it is much needed. Most executable file formats have a non-executable,
non-program data section. I would dump the script in there.


> +----------- http://home.t-online.de/home/Juergen.Kahrs/ -------------+
> [It's not just a linker you need, you'd also need a version of the
> language interpreter that was prepared to read from strings in the
> program. But it sounds like a rather peculiar thing to do with little
> practical benefit. -John]


I don't think it is that peculiar. Clint Jeffery and I hacked up a
way to combine the Icon interpeter and a source file so that we could
have one executable for easy distribution of binaries. The solution
was basically to just have a special copy of the interpreter that seeks
for a special marker where the executable ends, and the source script
is appended to file. We did not even bother try to put the code in a
debug section or something of the kind.


The perl people have a program that creates standalone executable
perl programs. When I asked the author what was his technique he
said that he did not want to make it public. Bastud.


-Ray Pereda
Univ. Texas @ San Antonio
--

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