Solaris, Objective-C, and shared libraries

[David McWherter <dtm at water dot waterw dot com>]

I think (but I'm not sure) that there's a bug in gcc-2.7.2.1
for Solaris, that causes objective-c object code that is
compiled as a shared library to fail (because some of its
data is shoved into a .text section, causing symbol resolving
to fail when the shared library is loaded).  The gcc code
seems to indicate that it does this to keep the variable
in question read-only, just for the fun of it.

My question is whether or not this bug still exists in egcs
for Solaris (I don't have free reign on a Solaris box to 
experiment).

Code that can replicate this looks like this:

printer.m
=============
#import "printer.h"
#import <stdio.h>

@implementation Printer
- init
{
 [super init];
 printf ("hello, printer\n");
 return self;
}
@end
=============

printer.h
=============    
#import <objc/Object.h>
@interface Printer : Object
{
}
- init;
@end
=============    

main.m
=============    
#import <stdio.h>
#import "printer.h"

int main () {
 id p = [[Printer alloc] init];
 printf("Hello, world\n");
 return 0;
}
=============    

Compiled like so:

	gcc printer.m -o printer.o -c -Wno-import -fPIC
	gcc printer.o -fPIC -shared -o libP.so.1.0
	gcc main.m -o x.sun4 -L. -lP -Wno-import -fPIC -lobjc

For me, the compile fails on the generation of the libP.so.1.0
file, because of "assert pure-text failed" errors on the symbol
___objc_class_name_Object.

gcc -v turns up:

Reading specs from
/vol/gnu/pkgs/gcc/2.7.2.1/sun4/lib/gcc-lib/sparc-sun-sunos4.1.3_U1/2.7.2.1/specs
gcc version 2.7.2.1

The assembler output surrounding the definition in question looks
like so:

        ret
        restore
        .align 4
        .word   ___objc_class_name_Object
        .global ___objc_class_name_Printer
___objc_class_name_Printer:
.data
        .align 8
__OBJC_CLASS_NAME_0:
        .ascii "Printer\0"
        .align 8
__OBJC_CLASS_NAME_1:
        .ascii "Object\0"
        .align 8

Moving the '.data' declaration up three lines, just before the 
'.word ___objc_class_name_Object' line allows things to link and run
(seemingly) properly. 

I think that ___objc_class_name_Object is put into the 
.text section in objc-act.c in the handle_class_ref function by
code that looks like so:

>>
       /* Make following constant read-only (why not)?  */
       readonly_data_section ();
<<

which I think should be data_section() instead...

-David