Re: Binutuls is broken now.

[Hans-Peter Nilsson <hans-peter dot nilsson at axis dot com>]

> Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:53:03 -0700
> From: "H . J . Lu" <hjl@lucon.org>

> On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 07:47:17PM +0200, Hans-Peter Nilsson wrote:
> > > Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:43:49 -0700
> > > From: "H . J . Lu" <hjl@lucon.org>
> > > What is wrong with my patch?
> > 
> > Whether relocatable link from binary is *supposed* to be
> > supported.
> 
> The Linux kernel has been using it for a long time. I believe it
> should just work with the proper linker script. Can you give me one
> reason why it won't work?

In general relocatable linking (-r) can't work between object
formats.  Bfd says -r can't happen between formats, and object
format backends assume in-bfd:s are of that format when -r.  The
binary format may be the exception; no relocs to handle, no
assumptions-giving-SEGV lurking between it and ELF.

> > > Is that ok to back out yours until we
> > > find a solution acceptable to everyone?
> > 
> > No.  Why back it out?  There are no binutils guidelines that
> 
> Because your patch changes the linker behavior and breaks the existing
> code which uses it. Unless the corrent behavior is broken, I don't
> think we should change it.

The existing behaviour (before my patch) was broken for reasons
I explained when that patch was submitted, briefly as above.

I do believe objcopy can be used in the Linux kernel example you
gave.  It seems cleaner than letting ld do the format
conversion, but that might be a matter of taste.

Nevertheless, changed behaviour is changed behaviour.  I think
we can afford to wait for head-maintainers opinions.  Right?

brgds, H-P