Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 10:11:37 -0500
Message-Id: <200212201511.gBKFBbU26698@envy.delorie.com>
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From: DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>
To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
In-reply-to: <10212200707.AA24651@clio.rice.edu> (sandmann@clio.rice.edu)
Subject: Re: LibC loaded Dynamically
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We'd have to support both static and dynamic linking.  I think the
fact that we *don't* need extra files is a significant advantage over
cygwin, which always needs that huge DLL on the system.  OTOH, dynamic
linking would make other DXEs a lot easier to deal with.

This might be a good time to consider the way ELF does it.  They have
a separate static linker binary that gets loaded at runtime to perform
all the relocations.  The libraries are truly shared (i.e. one load
per system, not per application), and all the tools are there already
if we choose ELF format.

Another option is to support DLL format directly.  This would add some
compatibility with cygwin as well, and make djgpp->windows easier.