Old story (30 years ago)

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Cut,

> As an extension to ELF format that does not lose generality, it is
> conceivable that symbols can perform four arithmetic operations with
> other symbols and constants during resolution.

This sounds very much like the "complex relocations" feature supported
by some architectures (eg MEP, RL78).

> I don't know very well about Clang or LLVM.  So this might be
> already out of date.  Any need for this extended ELF do you think?

I would say probably not.  Obviously support for high level languages
is already working with ELF as it is.  So if it isn't broken - don't
fix it.

This is not to say that exploring the idea is not worthwhile.  It
might produce some interesting results.  But I would be hesitant about
applying it to a generic tool like the linker without a real need.

Cheers
   Nick