executables

<tleylan@aloha.com> writes:
: Everybody keeps referring to this stuff as "old" and "simple" yet I can't
: find a "textbook" answer. It must be one of these subjects (and there
: are a few) where people who want to understand it are left on their own
: to experiment and figure out. Granted a book on the subject wouldn't
: find its way onto the best seller list but if Aho and Fischer and the
: others can all turn out compiler books I'd think a chapter or two on
: relocatable object format would (if nothing else) distinguish them a bit
: more.


    Check a library for this book:
"Compiler Construction for Digital Computers" by David Gries.
The book is outdated (1971) because it does not describe LR parsing.
    Chapter 17 contains a description of one relocatable format (from an
IBM mainframe). It explains what kind of information is needed and
how to put it in relocatable form. You need to figure out how to do
the equivalent tasks in the OBJ format. He also mentions a trick for
dealing with forward references in one-pass compilers.
    One thing that might not be obvious: you need to do the work of an
assembler. You need to count bytes, record target addresses, and use
that information for generating memory references and jump addresses.


Hope this helps.


Henry S. Takeuchi
htak@eskimo.com
[Gries book is an ancient classic in the field. It does indeed have an
adequate discussion of IBM 360 object format circa 1968. -John]
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