Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!pixar!bp From: bp@pixar.UUCP (Bruce Perens) Newsgroups: gnu.gcc,gnu.g++,ca.unix,comp.unix.wizards,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.modula2,comp.lang.pascal,comp.lang.smalltalk Subject: How would you design a new a.out format? Summary: The a.out format, especially the symbol-table portion, has not aged well. How would you design a new one? Keywords: a.out, ld, symbol table, name list, linker Message-ID: <1797@pixar.UUCP> Date: 12 May 88 22:00:47 GMT Organization: Pixar -- Marin County, California Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:8416 comp.lang.c:10094 comp.lang.c++:1115 comp.lang.misc:1587 comp.lang.modula2:838 comp.lang.pascal:874 comp.lang.smalltalk:556 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!pixar!bp From: bp@pixar.UUCP (Bruce Perens) Newsgroups: gnu.gcc,gnu.g++,ca.unix,comp.unix.wizards,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.modula2,comp.lang.pascal,comp.lang.smalltalk Subject: How would you design a new a.out format? Summary: The a.out format, especially the symbol-table portion, has not aged well. How would you design a new one? Keywords: a.out, ld, symbol table, name list, linker Message-ID: <1797@pixar.UUCP> Date: 12 May 88 22:00:47 GMT Lines: 19 Followup-To: Recent net discussion has pointed out the deficiencies in the BSD a.out format with extensions for DBX, and the ATT COFF format. Source-level debugging, new languages, resource managers, run-time-linking, and shared libraries make special demands on the a.out format. Extensibility of existing Unix a.out formats has been a problem. What do you want from a new a.out format? How would you implement one? DO NOT POST FOLLOW-UPs. Mail them, and I will post a summary. Mail to: bp@pixar.uucp uucp: {ucbvax,sun}!pixar!bp ARPA: pixar!bp@ucbvax.Berkeley.edu --- Bruce Perens - Pixar, Marin County, Ca. 415-258-8167 This posting contains the opinions of the author, which are not necessarily those of the management of Pixar.