X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to djgpp-bounces using -f Message-Id: <202111250613.1AP6DO6D009328@delorie.com> Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2021 06:54:25 +0100 From: "Juan Manuel Guerrero (juan DOT guerrero AT gmx DOT de) [via djgpp-announce AT delorie DOT com]" To: djgpp-announce AT delorie DOT com Subject: ANNOUNCE: DJGPP port of GNU binutils 2.37 uploaded. Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com This is a port of GNU binutils 2.37 to MSDOS/DJGPP. The GNU binutils are utilities of use when dealing with binary files, either object files or executables. These tools consist of the linker (ld), the assembler (gas), and the profiler (gprof). There is also a collection of other binary tools, including the disassembler (objdump). These tools make use of a pair of libraries (bfd and opcodes) and a common set of header files. DJGPP specific changes. ======================= - There are no DJGPP specific changes compared with the previous port. The DJGPP specific changes enumerated below are the same than the ones already available in the previous port. - This port allows a maximal number of 4294967296 relocations per object file and a maximal number of 4294967296 of lines per executable file. The previous limits were the classical COFF limitations of 65536 for boths. - The support of more than 64k relocations can be disabled by defining the DISABLE_64K_RELOC_SUPPORT environment variable to either y or Y. Any other value is ignored and automatically enables the greather than 64k relocations support. The same applies if the variable is not defined at all. This is true for all applications linked with libbfd.a if and only if they call the bfd_init function that will check for this environment variable. If this is not done the support is always enabled. All this means that the enabled support is always the default. - The linker script changes, are based on the diff files taken from Andris Pavenis' bnu219s2.zip and djcross-binutils-2.19.1-10ap.src.rpm. Both are available at ftp.delorie.com and mirrors. I have only made those adjustments necessaries to get those patches fit with the current source files. - The diffs file that contains all changes I have done is stored in the /djgpp directory. Also in this directory is stored the small build.sh script that I have used to adjust all configure and libtool scripts of the package. The well known issues that must been fixed are that: 1) the gawk test for setting the CR coding to be used does not work at all. 2) inhibit that gawk prepends a leading slash to DOS style path names. 3) a libtool function needs to be adjusted to get the install target working. 4) the target alias is removed from the tooldir and scriptdir path to get the programs and linker scripts installed in the canonical places of a DJGPP installation. That script is very simple and will only work to configure and compile the sources in the /djgpp directory. If you want to make changes or pass more or other options to configure, you will have to edit it or write your own script. build.sh shall not be smart, it shall only DTRT. - The diffs file stored in the /djgpp directory documents the DJGPP specific changes. It has been split into three different files. diffs-bfd contains all DJGPP specific changes to libbfd and libiberty. These changes are shared with the DJGPP port of gdb. The diffs file contains all DJGPP specific changes for the rest of binutils. The diffs-bugs file contain those DJGPP specific changes to fix bugs discovered during porting of binutils. If these changes are accepted by the binutils maintainers or the bug is fixed in some other way then this file will be removed for the next port release. All these files are located in the /djgpp directory. If you want to apply them to the original sources, diffs and diffs-bfd must be apllied first (in any order) and diffs-bugs always as last one. The elf support has proven not to work so it no longer provided at all. - This port provides a version of the linker that will be capable to resolve multiple symbol definitions conflicts when using DXE3 modules. Multiple symbol definition always occure when an application is linked with various libraries and more than one of its provides an object file defining the same function (symbol). E.g.: when compiling an arbitrary GNU source package like grep with NLS enabled and using the DXE3 module versions of the iconv library and the gettext library, a definition of the locale_charset function (aka symbol) will appear three times. One definition (aka function implementation) will be provided by the grep code itself via its own code (aka libgreputils.a). The other two will be provided by the import libraries libiconv.a and libintl.a of both DXE3 modules used. The linker will note that the different libraries provide different implementations of the same function and will abort operation with an error message like this: c:/djgpp-2.04/lib/libintl.a(dxe_tmp.o):dxe_tmp.c:(.text+0x7a4): multiple definition of `locale_charset' ../lib/libgreputils.a(localcharset.o):h:/g/srcs/gnu/grep-2.18/_build.204/lib/.././../lib/localcharset.c:363: first defined here c:/djgpp-2.04/lib/libiconv.a(dxe_tmp.o):dxe_tmp.c:(.text+0x248): multiple definition of `locale_charset' ../lib/libgreputils.a(localcharset.o):h:/g/srcs/gnu/grep-2.18/_build.204/lib/.././../lib/localcharset.c:363: first defined here collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status In case of multiple symbol definitions, the linker will check if one of the definitions comes from an import library (all import libraries contain only one single object file called either dxe_tmp.o or $$dxe$$.o). If the symbol definition is stored in a file called dxe_tmp.o, all other definitions will be ignored/discarded. This means that the symbol definition of the DXE3 module has __always__ precedence over any other symbol definition. This will guarantee that all compiled programs that use the same DXE3 module will use at runtime the same implementation of the required function and not a particular implementation provided by the sources of the program being compiled. That implementation may not even have been ported to djgpp and thus will be useless at all. There is no linker switch to change this behaviour and to give any other function implementation precedence over the DXE3 implementation. If more than one import library provides a definition for the same symbol, always the first is used and all other import library definitions are ignored. This is not an issue because the import libraries only provide wrapper functions that call at runtime the real functions stored in the DXE3 modules and these wrapper functions look all the same. Without this capability, the DXE3 modules become almost useless for NLS support, because the porter of every package that has NLS enabled would have to take care to remove all NLS specific functions from the port code that are already provided either by the gettext library or by the iconv library. Please note that the linker cannot resolve any other multiple symbol definition conflict than the one described for the DXE3 modules. Of course, if static library versions of those NLS libraries are used, these symbol conflicts do not arise at all and the linker creates an executable in the usual way. To be able to compile the linker with this feature you must uncomment the line that defines the DXE3_SUPPORT_ENABLED variable in the /djgpp/build.sh file. - There are ports like the one of GNU gettext that provide libraries with file names that cannot be uniquely mapped to short file names without using numeric tails. Usualy in this case the files are renamed so they have a valid short file name without having to use numeric tails. The consecuence of this renaming is that a lot of Makefiles need to be adjusted in a DJGPP/DOS specific way. To avoid this inconvenience, this version of the linker will provide a mapping feature between the original long file names and the DOS specific short file names. This port provides a new file called libnames.tab located in /dev/env/DJDIR/lib. When the linker tries to open a library with its original name and failes, it will try to open /dev/env/DJDIR/lib/libnames.tab and load it content into a static array/table. With the aid of this table it will try to map the long file name to a short file name. If this mapping is succesfull it will try to load that file instead of the original one and if this was also succesfull it will continue working. For every other library that cannot be loaded by its original name, the linker will search for an alternative name in the array/table and load that library instead. Please note that you cannot specific the location of libnames.tab. If required, the linker will load it from the canonical location and there will be no error message if libnames.tab cannot be found or loaded. If the linker cannot load the library neither by its original name nor by its short name it will abort the operation in the usual way and issue an error message about file loading error printing the original file name. The syntax for the entries is quite simple and the scanning/reading of the file is not bullet-proof. This means that syntax errors will not be detected and will produce nonsense file name translations that will very likely make abort the linker. I do not think that this is a great inconvenience because most of the users should never add any entry to this file. It is the job of the port of some package that must provide an update of libnames.tab if his port contains renamed libraries. Syntax of libnames.tab entries: 1) The # character defines comment line that will be skipped. The comment is the complete line and NOT only the text following the # character! 2) Empty lines will be skipped. 3) A valid entry looks like: withverylongname-1.2 wvln12 Neither the prefix nor the suffix/extension of the library name is part of the table entry. For the above example the complete file name of the library would be: libwithverylongname-1.2.a To get a valid entry strip the prefix "lib" and the suffix ".a" from the library name. The same applies to the short file name of the library. In the example above, the library has been renamed to: libwvln12.a and that is the file name of the library that the linker will use. The original file name is always the first name and the substitute file name is the second name. Both names are separated by at least one space or tab character. Another example: the gettext port provides a library that has been renamed to libgtxtsrc.a. Its original name was libgettextsrc.a. The entry for this library looks like this: gettextsrc gtxtsrc As can be seen the "lib" prefix and the ".a" suffix have been stripped from both library names to get the table entry. In the actual version of libnames.tab there are only the three entries for the three renamed libraries provided by the gettext port. - For performance reasons, BFD tries to open and cache certain amount of files and its contents. How many files can be opened is determinated at program start using the getrlimit function. Unfortunately this function seems to be a placebo function. At least when using djdev204 on WinXP, this function always returns the hard coded value of 255. This is the value for the number of files that can be opened (RLIMIT_NOFILE). BFD takes one eight of this value but at least 10 and opens so mutch files as required. If your FILES entry in config.sys is not large enough (at least around 35) then the program aborts. The corresponding BFD function now assumes that there are at least 16 available and will use all of them if required. This has the consequence that the user must set his FILES entry in config.sys or config.nt to 20 or 25. The value depends on how much file handles the OS and the DPMI server has already consumed for its on needs. - The port has been configured and compiled on WinXP SP3 and on Win98SE. There is no guarantee that this may be possible with any other DOS-like OS. Due to the use of long file names it will not be possible to configure and compile without LFN support. The port has been compiled using gcc346b and bnu237b. - The port has been tested by using it. I have used them only on WinXP, Win98SE, MS-DOS 7.0 and MS-DOS 6.22. It has worked flawlessly. I do not konw if this will ever be the case on FreeDOS. I have never used nor tested them on that environment. As usual, all djgpp specific files (build.sh, diffs, README files, etc.) are stored in the /djgpp directory. The sources have not been configured so you must change into the /djgpp directory and start build.sh. This will configure the sources and start make. For further information about Binutils please read the info docs and NEWS file. The port consists of the usual four packages that have been produced using djdev205 (CVS repository code) and can be downloaded from ftp.delorie.com and mirrors as (time stamp 2021-11-24): Binutils 2.37 binaries, info and man format documentation: http://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu/bnu237b.zip Binutils 2.37 bfd, liberty and opcode libraries and headers: http://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu/bnu237a.zip Binutils 2.37 dvi, html, ps and pdf format documentation: http://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu/bnu237d.zip Binutils 2.37 source: http://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu/bnu237s.zip Send GNU binutils specific bug reports to . Send suggestions and bug reports concerning the DJGPP port to comp.os.msdos.djgpp or . Enjoy. Guerrero, Juan Manuel