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Allover Stripes <allover@hedgehog.globalserve.net> writes:
> When I examined unexec lo, many moons ago, it was necessary to unexec
> *before* any libraries were dynamically loaded. (My guess is it
> didn't correctly fix up pointers to objects in the dynamic library).
> This was a problem in the specific case of readline support (ugh,
> worms) which was dynamically loaded at bootup in my interpreter.
>
> Has anyone fixed this problem? Was it ever real? Did my hardware
> just put bad juju on it?
No, you're right, but I'd like to note one thing. The binary
resulting from an unexec can dynamically link stuff, but there are
some restrictions one what can be dynamically linked before the
unexec. I'm not exactly sure about what the restrictions are.
For instance, on Solaris, you have to statically link libguile.a into
your program if you want unexec to work, but there are lots of other
system libraries that _do_ work with dynamic linking before exec.
> A general unexec system is a good idea, since there may be
> non-trivial computational tasks that need to be run on bootup
> (constructing parser DFAs, say)
Yes, and one can think of lots of other neat application areas, like a
guile-scsh executable that starts up in a flash.
-russ
--
"NT 5.0 is the last nail in the Unix coffin. Interestingly, Unix isn't
in the coffin... It's wondering what the heck is sealing itself into a
wooden box 6 feet underground..."
-- Jason McMullan