Re: BUG elf32-i386 R_386_PC32 done wrong

[Ian Lance Taylor]

doctor electron <address@hidden> writes:

> >You have not described any benefit beyond abstract appeals to what you
> >think object files should look like.  That doesn't count.  Give us a
> >measurable benefit and we'll consider it.
> 
> I did: the vast amount of .obj files containing useful
> procedures would become "interoperable".  In terms of available
> software, one might estimate 10x more .obj files than .o files
> worldwide.

Just to be excruciatingly clear, when ld links a .obj file, it
naturally applies the PE/COFF relocation calculation, not the ELF
relocation calculation.  It is not the case that simply changing the
ELF calculation will make .obj files interoperable with ELF files.

In principle ld can link PE/COFF input files to generate an ELF output
file.  In practice that rarely works because the shared library (DLL)
model is completely different.  The problem there is not the
relocation processing.  Because this type of linking so rarely works,
it is rarely used, and there are probably a number of problems with
it.

Ian