Re: The Extension to ELF

["Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche at redhat dot com>]

Hi -

On Wed, Aug 08, 2012 at 06:23:52AM -0700, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> [...]
> > This has been merged into gnu binutils some time ago, though is not
> > widely known, and only used by a single cgen-based gas port.  See the
> > OBJ_COMPLEX_RELC conditionals in gas/*, the BSF_*RELC/STT_RELC logic
> > in bfd/*.
> 
> Thanks, I was trying to remember that.
> 
> It is perhaps also worth noting that the IEEE-695 object file format
> supports arbitrary expressions in a number of different ways,
> including for relocation calculations.  The format is not widely used
> today, for more or less that reason.

It is quite different from ELF for sure.  One certainly wouldn't want
to use such a complex-relocation facility unnecessarily - when the
hard-coded normal ones will do the job.  But if you need something
more, and are willing to pay the longer linking time (than what?),
it's worth considering.


- FChE