From: utzoo!decvax!cca!hplabs!hao!menlo70!sytek!zehntel!teklabs!azure!steveg@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: Library functions with non-integer return types
Article-I.D.: azure.1189
Posted: Fri Sep  3 16:50:35 1982
Received: Mon Sep 13 02:03:39 1982

Most versions of the assembler/loader cause routines to be pulled in
from libraries if they are mentioned (as in a "extern" or ".globl"
declaration), but are never used.

Putting routine definitions into include files just invites bigger than
needed a.out files (particularly important on 11's - how many times
have you gotten stdio pulled in when you didn't want it?).  You could
of course create separate include files for each routine, but that has
obvious lossage.

A more permanant solution would be to make the assembler ignore all
.globls that are not actually used.  I've been thinking about trying
this and seeing what breaks.  Anyone know of anything that depends on
current semantics?  Any other comments?

	Steve Glaser, Tektronix MDP

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