Re: FreeBSD 4.6 - binutils 2.14 installs useless libbfd

[Ian Lance Taylor <ian at airs dot com>]

John Levon <levon@movementarian.org> writes:

> On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 02:13:23PM -0700, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> 
> > > Furthermore, the parts of libbfd we actually use (namely, reading
> > > symbols and debug info) have had stable APIs for ages.
> > 
> > Incidentally, this is actually incorrect.  The APIs are stable from
> > the point of source code, but they aren't stable from the point of
> > view of shipping a shared library which provides them.  That's because
> > of BFD's habit of using a vector of function pointers, and providing a
> > lot of functionality via macros.
> 
> This sounds like ABI not API to me. Apologies if I've misunderstood you.
> 
> Nobody expects a stable ABI.

Sorry, you're right, it's ABI.  But a stable ABI is exactly what
matters when it comes to using an installed shared library.  The fact
that you can use a program linked against an old glibc on a system on
which a new glibc is installed is because the glibc maintainers pay a
lot of attention to maintaining a stable ABI.

Ian