[PATCH 4/8] BFD: Add BFD pointer member to `struct carsym'

[Jan Beulich]

On 27.09.2025 01:53, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> From: Maciej W. Rozycki <macro@redhat.com>
> 
> Replace the file offset with a union of one and a BFD pointer in `struct 
> carsym', as a preparation to handle symbol maps built on the fly rather 
> than fetched from a file.  No functional change.
> 
> NB there's a note on `struct carsym' being a type pun on `struct symdef' 
> as in include/aout/ranlib.h (or `struct ranlib'; no idea where it comes 
> from).  With this code update in place it is possibly not true anymore, 
> depending on the underlying type of `file_ptr'.  This is not a problem 
> however, because we always process `struct carsym' data by hand and only 
> use it internally rather than reading/writing from/to a file.  Therefore 
> only remove the note, as no longer applicable.

It wasn't quite true already before, as file_ptr != unsigned long (in the
general case).

> --- binutils-gdb.orig/bfd/archive.c
> +++ binutils-gdb/bfd/archive.c
> @@ -149,12 +149,19 @@ extern int errno;
>  
>  /*
>  EXTERNAL
> +.{* Holds a file position or bfd* depending on context.  *}
> +.typedef union file_ptr_or_bfd
> +.{
> +.  file_ptr file_offset;
> +.  bfd *abfd;
> +.}
> +.file_ptr_or_bfd;

The comment is too little for my taste, I'm afraid. How would one know which
of the two it is, merely seeing an instance of this type?

Jan